What a fine fine Friday evening it was, I started listening to the first of Podtrash’s (PT) Friday evening shows, The High Pitch Eric Show, and all seemed good. The show started with Gonzo telling Eric he was glad he was back after last week, because Eric had said he was going to quit the show, or take a ‘mental health’ break. Evidently through the week Eric had reflected on that, and he said that “The four of us are a team, we’re a power team. We’re the Power Rangers and we have to stick together as a team”. It wasn’t clear to me at that time who the fourth person was that Eric referred to, because there were only 3 host on the show, but Chad (AKA Pun Boy) did actually take credit for Eric not quitting early in the week through a call into a different PT show, where he stated that he had talked Eric out of quitting. Pun Boy reportedly has Eric’s ear and talks to him regularly on his show, and has been known to manipulate him on numerous occasion since Joey passed away and Eric started his own show. So the subject of the manipulations to which I refer, are ones that have to do with Eric’s PT show. With Eric’s show clips having now been played on Howard Stern’s show, Eric is more of a ‘Howard’ connection for those who have a predisposition towards the importance of Howard in their lives. Regardless though, the whole Pun Boy and Eric dynamic often seems to play back into the PT network and Eric’s show somehow. According to sources, Pun Boy's Eric manipulation game, which is done on-air under the guise of comedy, is done on a pretty regular basis or when the on-air opportunity arises. And no, I don’t listen to that podcast, not since the 2nd one that was related to the Pun boy & PT breakup drama and the resulting hurt feelings. But so what, it’s none of anyone’s business what one person says to or how one treats another (unless you care about one of them), besides those people who are involved. It’s all a big game with at least the intention of being entertaining, so should anyone really take issue with what happens between them? Let the boys play I say, so long as no one gets hurt or loses an eye (or a show), then it's all good. Whatever the case is, Eric’s power ranger comparison was pretty funny and I thought the show was off to a good start, with Jolie and Gonzo also seeming to be happy go lucky. Eric said if he quits then the haters win and he told Jolie that, “We are strong people, and can’t let the haters get to us”. Then Eric told us about his 4X - Winners Never Quit tee-shirt. Eric didn’t know it at the time, but his statements would become ironic, as he would say later that he was quitting the show for good as was Jolie, which would be in response to Max’s forthcoming tantrum.
So I set off to get some red wine with the intention of coming home and drinking some and listening to the HPE show as well as Wush’s show afterwards. I’m on a little bit of a red wine kick because they say that it’s healthy, and by healthy they mean 2 small glasses of it and not the whole bottle. Opps. I don’t know about you, but there is no such thing as 2 glasses of wine for me unless I were to break the bottle on accident after 2 glasses and couldn’t get more. Anyway, I returned home about 25 or 30 minutes later and clicked the play button for the show and all hell was breaking loose. Max was yelling at some chic who was a caller as well as Jolie, with small amounts of anger shrapnel hitting anyone who addressed him, and I had no idea what started it. Sure the rant was mesmerizing to hear, but without a frame of reference for how it all started, it was also disturbing to listen to. Like seeing a train wreck, it was hard to 'not' pay attention to, but I was hoping in the end everyone would be okay. What the hell had these girls done to bring out Mad Max’s fit?
As Wush stated on his show following this HPE show, we regular PT listeners have heard these Mad Max rants before, and while the rants themselves are not necessarily surprising, the trigger that inspires them can be. Having been on the receiving end of one of the Mad Max rants recently, in early March this year, I can attest to that first hand. It was during a late night aftershow kind of shindig, and while the trigger for Max’s rant towards me was not totally clear, it took root in his anger that Podgas (PG) in fact existed, and he didn’t like it. So he threw some rocks and branches around while beating his chest, and to be honest I thought it was fun and entertaining. I enjoyed engaging Mad Max, and while I’m not sure that Max enjoyed it as much he did send me a few thumbs up the next day. I’m sure his opinions didn’t change, but I think the way he presented them may not have been sitting so well. We’ll have to see (maybe) how his feelings are sitting after this shows’ temper tantrum, either way though it’s definitely a no-brainer to conclude that the girls on the receiving end of his anger during this show, they were not enjoying it.
The first thing I noticed in listening to the HPE show as far as Max was concerned, was the little sound effects he began to make in the background which was at about 29 minutes into the show. They started with little whispers and feigning responses after a host or caller would say something, and eventually he became loud enough with them to garner the attention of the hosts. At about 8 minutes into Max’s background noise making session, and around the 37-minute mark on the show, Jolie asked whether or not it’s Max making the “weird noises”, but that went unanswered as Gonzo finished a story. After another minute or so Max chimes into the show for the second time, but the first time in which he actually speaks more than a word, which was to tell a dead dad joke about Pittsburg Pete (AKA PP) whose dad recently passed. That was followed up by calling PP a “skinny faggot”. To be fair here, it has been alleged the PP is actually a huge asshole, and may also own one, but after Gonzo giggled about Max using the word ‘faggot’ he notified him that they, “Don’t use that word anymore...” because he was trying to get a show sponsor. Yeah, good luck with that Gonzo.
Max spoke up for the second time at around the 39-minute mark on the show, which was to announce Pun Boy’s call, but the discussion at hand continued between the other hosts. Pun Boy had evidently been calling Max’s Skype instead of Gonzo’s, which Max elaborated on while Pun Boy was trying to get on the show, which he did about a minute later. Pun Boy immediately began to prod Gonzo by asking him to explain his breakup with his girlfriend, which is actually a pretty standard opening between those two. The funny of it is, Gonzo always maintains he doesn’t want to talk about that relationship, or anything that might have come from it. In that conversation Gonzo eventually reveals that his ex believes in creationism and is a creationist, which he stated he didn’t take seriously enough. Pun Boy and Max threw a few jabs at Gonzo’s ex, with Pun Boy going with his standby insult of calling her a mongoloid and Max asking if she believed people rode dinosaurs in the beginning. While Gonzo was elaborating a bit about his ex, Pun Boy asks about child custody, which of course he knows is a taboo topic for Gonzo, as he’s never openly announced he has, may be having or has already had a child with his ex. Although most of the PT regulars have already pieced it together from comments Gonzo has made, or comments made to him on other shows. (*UPDATE - Gonzo stated on-air on April 7th, that he in fact does not have a love child)
After prodding Gonzo, Pun Boy starts his ‘this is a bad show’ shtick which Max seems to enjoy a lot judging by his laughter. It is notable to mention that Max is often the only one laughing at Pun Boy’s shticky jokes, besides Pun Boy’s laughing at himself. I don’t point this out to be malicious necessarily, it’s just how it often plays out. Don’t take my word for it, listen to a few of those shows for yourself. As a point of observation, Max’s supporting Pun Boy laughs can most often be heard during a ‘this is terrible’ or ‘this person is terrible’ type of Pun Boy shtick, which is similar to the dynamic that use to play out between Pun Boy and Booney. That is, unless Max himself is the target of the shtick, in those cases Pun Boy is left with just self-laughter. PG’s covered this phenomenon before, and you can read about it HERE. But sorry, I digress.
On with the story! So Pun Boy again redirects his shtick, with the new target being the caller on the show, and he asked someone to hang up on him. Eric repeated the statement, and to be fair we should mention that the caller did have a pretty lame bit attempt at a masturbation joke. It seemed at this point that Gonzo (who had the Skype call control) had stepped away from his computer or was having connectivity issues, which prompted Pun Boy and Max to comment on how bad the show was again. It was also around this time that Max switched up his homemade background sounds and began to incorporate a masturbation type of effect. You know what I mean, that sound one can make by pinching their cheek and moving it in and out real fast. Soon afterwards the show received a new call from Jen, who congratulated Eric on his healthy eating, but Jen immediately became Pun Boy’s new shtick target, as he interrupted her conversation with Eric by stating, “I don’t like the way this broad sounds”. Max’s masturbation sound effect continued and got louder as Pun Boy was shticking it to Jen. ‘Shtick’ing it to her, get it? Sorry. Anyways, Gonzo was still AWOL from the show while that was going down, and Pun Boy and Max pretty much took over the show. It was the beginning of the end.
While Jolie was asking Jen a question, Max started a new background sound effect, which was hitting something on his beer bottle (it sounded like) but he continued his masturbation noise with his other hand, which Pun Boy apparently found funny as told by his laughter at it. Around the 49-minute mark everyone dropped from the show, with Max reconnecting everyone pretty quick except Jen was gone. It’s not been stated whether Max did it on purpose, but he had everyone back within 20 seconds or so except Jen, she wasn’t on the Skype call anymore. Jolie came back asking “What in the actual fuck is going on” (I hate when people say that) and Pun Boy’s shtick returned to how bad the show was, calling it garbage while Max picked back up with his masturbation background noises. Pun Boy then started shticking it to Jolie saying “women aren’t good with computers” which drew a large exaggerated laugh from Max. Pun boy followed that up with a brag about a mandatory teaching assignment, which was wrapped in a joke about how dumb women were, and this received a quick response from Max, as he expressed his ideas about what women should do in life, which was to, “marry rich”. This moment in the show, was the EXACT spark that ignited the inferno, or maybe more accurately put, the EXACT spark that ignited Max’s inferno, which would turn into an 8 alarm fire type fit of unprovoked insults and screaming which all seemed based on Max’s ideas that women were incompetent and/or stupid. At this point, for myself and probably other regular PT listeners, it appeared that Max was just pushing Jolie’s buttons to make an entertaining bit, and that’s all good and fair, but that impression doesn’t last too long. Once Max’s (or anyone’s) raw anger comes out, so do one’s true feelings about whatever is being discussed. Just like fish is the other white meat, anger is the other truth serum. It acts the same as alcohol. So the whole impression of, it’s just a bit, or it’s just a joke and nothing is meant by it, is quickly consumed by the real anger Max was soon going to put on display.
It’s at this time that Jolie mentions to Max that she’s very successful on her own, to which Max replies that, that is irrelevant. Pun Boy, with his shtick still focused on Jolie, then attempts to bring into discussion a Jolie PT Chat room troll, whose name was something like 'Jolie’s a whore' (if I had to bet a dollar, I’d say it was Chucksteak), but Pun Boy pretended he didn’t understand who the troll was supposed to be named after, pronouncing it ‘Jolly’, then he proceeds to read their comment, but this time his shtick was met with a quick deflection by Jolie, as she had been burnt by that fire before. Besides, Jolie had now given most of her attention to Max, and considering Max had been making background noises for more than 20 minutes of the show, that’s exactly what he was looking for.
At around the 52-minute mark on the show is when Max first starts to mix it up with Jolie, with her stating she wanted to ask Max a question and Max responding with, “Do you think I’m sexsist now?”. Jolie points out to Max that he made a huge statement with saying what he did, and Jolie asked if he felt the same way about his sister (she didn’t know that Max is an only child) or his girlfriend? To this Max replies for the first time, with what he would cite at other times during the show as to the reason behind the ideas he was expressing, which was as he stated, “Because I like to make funny things, I like to say funny things”. Jolie responded to that with, “Okay” to which Max followed up by stating, “I don’t care what you do, or any dumb woman does”. So while Max’s first statement appeared to be almost an admission that it was just a joke or maybe a troll, and an attempt to say something “funny”, his second statement seems to affirm his beliefs as far as women go, which is that they are “dumb”. Again, this appears still to be a simple troll, and I say simple because there were no real points made or examples given, just a general claim about women, but it soon went beyond that. So far beyond, that it became apparent that the “funny” Max was saying, wasn’t actually meant to be “funny”, but instead the things he says is an open look at his true feelings about the other half of the world’s population, and it was a chance for Max to vent some of his anger at the expense of the women present. Later Max expanded on these feelings somewhat by stating that “they act ridiculous, and they want equal rights”, so they should pick one or the other. A few things become obvious at this point, one, Max actually has some deep seeded feelings about women in general, and two, there’s no turning around his angry train.
I don’t intend to break down what everyone said, and the show definitely speaks for itself. I imagine most regular PT listeners have a good idea about Max’s opinions on several things, to include women, because he has spoken at length about it on many different shows. That’s also the reason why Max’s claim that he’s just trying to say things that he thinks were “funny”, or saying these things to just troll for a reaction, doesn’t hold much water. When one considers the big picture insofar as another person’s point of view is concerned, it’s easier to understand how that person might react in certain situations, and it makes it easier to understand why certain things may happen around certain people in a given situation. But hey, and no sarcasm intended, it is a free country and people can think how they want to think. It’s just that when one understands another’s point of view, it helps quantify their reactions better which can come as a result of those views. Although my initial reaction to this whole thing was to wonder how it got started in the first place, or who triggered Max, when listening to the whole show it became clear that there was no obvious trigger, at least in a ‘traditional’ sense. It all started with Pun Boy telling a joke about how women were dumb, and Max expanding on that with not jokes, but instead insults just for the sake of insulting, with him and Pun Boy being the only ones who were enjoying the exchange.
Around the 62-and-a-half-minute mark is when Max first started in with the name calling and shouting, which was directed at Jen and said after someone pointed out that she wanted to call back to confront Max on his statements. Max started with a few appetizers of, “fucking tramp”, then in response to others on the show telling him how fucked up he was behaving, he said he’d throw everyone off of the show and deal with this “slut” caller himself, or he would end the show. Pun Boy immediately followed that up with a joke about having Jen, who was going to call the show, masturbate for him on the phone. This essentially prods Max along who is already in the beginning stages of his angry release, with any girl present being the target. Max then began to challenge Jen the “fucking pig” to call in, yelling that several times for effect. I think there was a small break which afterwards Gonzo was reconnected with the show which was right before Jen actually called in. Around the 82 or 83-minute mark in the show, Mad Max hit overdrive with his insults, which was where his tantrum started to reach ‘the next level’. Immediately after that began, and I mean literally within seconds of the start of Max’s true tantrum, Pun Boy stokes the fire by trying to call out Gonzo, saying that he was the real problem for not dealing with Max’s anger on air. I know, it’s seems ridiculous but I’m not ‘interpreting’ what went down, that’s actually how it played out. Pun Boy appeared to be playing his PT manipulation game again, and apparently it was all fun & games for him and Max, as evident by the fact that they were still laughing at whatever the other person said. Anyway, it was obvious at this point that Gonzo was the new target of Pun Boy’s shtick because during the middle of Max’s racially charged, gender driven fit of insults, he was trying to call out Gonzo. You can’t even make this shit up. At that time Pun boy jumped on Max’s chaos train, and told Eric he should quit the show, all while Max was directing various unprovoked insults at the un-expecting girls there (Jolie and Jen). It reminded me of a well-placed ambush I'd see on a movie, were the people involved didn’t know what hit them until it was all over. Max’s fit consisted mostly of high school name calling strategies, like calling the girls sluts and cunts, while claiming a number of different ways that they in fact like to “fuck niggers”. Max shouted several variations of his, they like black people scenario in trying to drive his point home. There’s a few important things to note here as well, and relevant to how this whole thing got started. First, Max doesn’t really know the two women who he was targeting, he has never met them or held a private conversation with them. The second thing that's worthy to note is that still nothing had been said to insult or provoke Max. The yelling and name calling that happened during this show was something that had to be sought out, and only made possible because Max was hosting the show and had Pun Boy’s support. The negative attention Max received by the others on the show was openly welcome by both of them, and Max’s behavior was voluntary and not defensive in nature. It came from within himself and motivated by what can only be seen as a malicious attempt to be as cruel and offensive to his targets as possible. With Pun Boy at his side, Max took to the stage to show everyone how loud and obnoxious he could be, and in doing so he provided a window into how he thinks. Windex anyone? Sorry, bad joke, but let’s be honest, without Pun Boy supporting Max, his tantrum simply wouldn’t have happened. Without support and prodding, Max would have set quietly in his hosting chair, and Eric wouldn’t have lost control to them. Period. (I love one word sentences)
An important point to clarify is that technically Max wasn’t even part of the show, at least content-wise, that is until his background noises started about a half an hour into it. Max only first starts speaking (besides the PP joke) when Pun Boy was present, and Pun Boy was the only one laughing at Max’s behavior. That is until Max started ramping up his insults too much around the 84-minute mark, then Pun Boy appears to back off the support for Max for about 20 seconds. Evidently the way Max was acting was over the line for at least 20 seconds, but quickly after that Pun Boy turns his shtick on Gonzo by trying to lay some type of blame on him for not addressing Max during his fit. For the record, Max’s tantrums are not a two-way conversation type of situation, that’s why they can be classified as rants. It’s Max basically yelling over everyone while trying to be as insulting as his intellect will allow. Gonzo, who neither contributed to, nor was supporting the behavior that Max was exhibiting, unlike Pun Boy himself, was just as much of an unwilling participant as Eric or the girls were. Evidently though what stood out as important to Pun Boy to point out and wrap up his final thoughts with, was a desperate move to try to call out Gonzo for his inability to reign in Max. That should say a lot about Pun Boy to anyone who was paying attention. This whole thing, while probably not planned out in total detail, was definitely initiated and welcomed by both Max and Pun Boy, as evident by their actions and statements made during it. Despite Pun Boy trying to claim that what went down says a lot about Gonzo’s character, it in fact says a lot about his own, as well as Max’s. That realization was not an easy one for me to put to ‘paper’ as far as Max is concerned, because I had a real fondness for him (and other PT’ers). His Florida hillbilly way of thinking was something new to me. Hell I even wrote a nice article about him which you can read HERE, and I made like 3 audio type song bits about him, one using clips from a previous tantrum he had on-air. I wouldn’t have done that for someone I wasn't fond of, but there comes a time when one’s actions have to speak louder than any preconceived notions or feelings that we might have about them. Speaking for myself, this was one of those times.
If only the network ban Wush instated on Pun Boy awhile back would have also covered interacting on-air with shows, then PT might still have the HPE show. Maybe they still do, but according to Jolie and Eric, they are done with the show. We’ll have to wait and see if that’s the case, but I guess some congratulations are in order for Max and Pun Boy? They got exactly what they wanted, which was to take over the HPE show and create some chaotic drama.
