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  • Frotcast 617_ The Bullshit Asymmetry Economy, w Chris Thompson.mp3
  • Frotcast 617_ The Bullshit Asymmetry Economy, w Chris Thompson.mp3

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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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Comments

Jeremy Martinez

Love that we've reached the stage of capitalism that is just the fake town from Blazing Saddles. We're all about to get bushwhacked while waving back at the wooden people.

James Mitchell

This story needs to be a movie directed by the Coen bros.

Mr. Pie

I love that over the many years I've listened to this podcast, it has rapidly become more and more a dystopian podcast of screaming into the abyss

Gary-Eoghan Gallagher

I am just about at the 15 minute mark and have had to start (hate the term) active listening, because everything being described just does not sound real...but it is

Tyler

Matt represents the most annoying faction of Beach Boys fans that believe that Brian Wilson was the only creative force in the band and that the early records are the only real ones. Half the songs on the first five albums are dumb. I love the Today! album but it contains the bad version of Help Me Ronda and ends with a two and a half minute aimless interview called "Bull Session with the 'Big Daddy.'" I'm not blind to the fact that the late 60s through early seventies have some clunkers too (every TM song is bad) but you've also got some really beautiful stuff (and the song that Charles Manson wrote). Sunflower and Holland are better than anything else they ever did (aside from Pet Sounds). That said, I don't get the amount of love that Love You gets and the following 6 albums have barely enough good songs combined to make one record.

Tyler

Also, in the past few years for copyright maintenance reasons they reissued Wild Honey through Holland with a bunch of extra stuff, but most importantly, they fixed the mixing issues that initially made some of the songs sound dull and lifeless.

Mr. Pie

Vince, if you ever decide you want someone to hold onto those numetal albums, I'm a self hating numetal fan and will treasure them. I'll DM you on X The Everything App

Mr. Pie

SIKE because X sucks. Whatever, just announce it on an episode or something and I'll reach out again

Paul Des Lauries

Wild that you all talk about water flowing in Virginia when the entire city of Richmond and the surrounding area just lost water for a 3 days and were under a boil advisory for a week after catastrophic failure at our water treatment facility. It fucking sucked. Couldn't flush toilets for days. Hospitals were screwed. Saw an elderly couple filling up buckets of water from the storm drain runoff near the dog park. Crazy that so few people heard about it. Interesting threads about deferred infrastructure improvements and local cronyism https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/richmond-water-plant-outage-latest-jan-13-2025 https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/richmond-hospitals-water-crisis-jan-7-2025 https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/mayor-avula-interview-jan-15-2025 https://www.newsbreak.com/wtvr-cbs-6-563678/3764397748685-her-richmond-restaurant-lost-water-for-days-then-insurance-denied-her-claim

KMF

I'm an eviction defense lawyer in LA, the price gouging is worse than even i thought it would be

boysef

I will bid on anything of Ben’s for charity/Matt’s sister