INTRO: Since 2018, I have been interviewing today’s most interesting location, independent entrepreneurs and world travelers, and I hand select my guests not only because they are smart and well-traveled and interesting, but also because they are fun people. They make me laugh and these conversations have been a blast. We will oftentimes just open a bottle of wine, turn on the microphones and see where the conversation goes. And so, in this episode, I have compiled for you some of the most fun stories and moments over the last five years of The Maverick Show. Please enjoy.
Spencer Jentzsch: One of them comes over to me and they say, hey, we’ve got an emergency. He’s older, he’s a bit frail, he’s having difficulty lifting his cup to his mouth, so he can’t drink his drink. This is an emergency. And I just, I mean, you know me, I’m a real person and I like to cut through bullshit. So, I’m just like, okay, what? That doesn’t make any sense to me. And they’re like, he needs a straw. We have an emergency. The CEO of Samsung needs a straw.
Martine Volmar: If you asked a random person who drinks whiskey, right? It’s an old white dude with an Ascot. He probably has a cigar. There’s probably a Chesterfield sofa. That’s who you’re thinking immediately. If I just said, who’s a whiskey drinker, that’s who pops into your head. Oh, the girls are having wine night. The boys are having a whiskey night.
Matt Bowles: Right.
Martine Volmar: I know more about whiskey and drink more whiskey than a lot of the men I know.
Matt Bowles: You know more about whiskey than any of the men that I know.
Michael Thelin: It’s like sprinting a marathon. Can you imagine sprinting a marathon? You kind of feel like you’re going to die. You know? I felt I was going to die. I was like, I’m going to probably die in this for sure. Yeah, fuck it. It’s like, oh, I didn’t know that they broke up in the middle of the shoot and that’s why I couldn’t get so and so to show up on time anymore.
And you’re like, oh, okay. And producers have to handle that shit. Cause like, they have to shield you from it. Cause you just can’t know. There was so much shit happening. I think behind the scenes, I mind that I had blinders on, like, I was like one of those horses in central park. And it was like, just keep walking forward. Just keep going forward. Oh yeah. All that shit’s like, it’s falling away. Like next, I’m just keeping going forward.
Valerie Schrock: I am living with two housemates at the time. We were all out of the house and we had a string of robberies around our cul de sac and we got home and there was a noise. And I have a split-level house. There was a noise on the second level. And the sword, it was right there in the kitchen. And so, I grabbed the sword and ran towards the noise. And when I opened the door, there was a dude in the room, the window was open, and he was handing out a laptop to some other dude. And I held the sword up at him and I said, I have a sword!
Conor Walsh: I’m very used in Kenya and Malaysia and other countries of people coming up and taking a photo with me. So, then you get to Addis Ababa and people are coming up to you and like, take a photo, you’ll take a photo. And I’m like, okay, and I’m getting ready for the selfie. And they look at me and go, not with you. Do you take a photo of me?
Matt Bowles: Which country has better jollof, Nigeria or Ghana?
Fadila A. Ahmad: Hands down Nigeria. You already know guys, you already know guys, like the Nigerian jollof, the level of creativity, the level of innovation, the level of, oh my goodness, gastronomical orgasm that you’re going to actually experience from eating that food is beyond anything you’ve ever experienced. My Ghana people, I always say this, in fact, the best jollof is Nigerian jollof that is cooked in Ghana.
Mel Judson: You know, you guys can’t see me because you’re listening to this podcast, but I’m very small. I’m about as small as an adult-sized human can actually be. You also can’t tell because I’m very loud.
Zein El-Amine: And he was into some really kinky stuff. And the police in Tangier, which weren’t like the police were used to, because this was called the free zone. They would find him at three o’clock in the morning, bloodied and slinging in the streets. And they would just. take him home and put him there. And then they would say, Francis, do you want to complain that somebody hit you? And he said, no, I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is the kind of place that it was.
Arsalan Iftikhar: I’m sitting in the CNN studio. I have the microphone in my ear and all you can see is this six-foot-tall robotic camera in front of you. And you hear in your earpiece, the question, do you support ISIS? Now, I’m not going to lie to you at that moment, things went slow motion and in slow motion, I remember live when he asked me that question, the first thing I thought to myself is I know good and well that Don Lemon did not just ask me if I supported ISIS and in that same slow motion thought process, right after that, I thought to myself. This motherfucker just asked me if I support ISIS.
Rosanna Lopes: Every time that I would try to do a British accent, British people would look at me and go like are you taking a piss? Like, are you, are you trying to joke about my accent? And I’m like, no, I’m trying to, I’m trying to change my accent. Please bear with me. But there seems to be no admiration or respect for that. They just think it as mocking. So, and they’re always like, are you Dick Van Dyke? It’s like, no, but so this really didn’t work out. And in the four years I did not change my accent.
Krystal Pino: My first class in Alabama in a trailer. I’m the new kid, right? So, I sit in the back, which in a trailer, there’s really not back because there’s just three very long rows of beds. So, I tried to sit as far in the back as I could, but being the new kid, everybody recognized me, right? And quickly formed this semi-circle around me where I was asked to pronounce various words. And I had to elaborate to my classmates that pen, pan, and pin were actually three separate words. It wasn’t all just PIN! And they’re like, you talk funny. And I was like, oh my God, have you heard yourself?
Amara Abara: So, I just published a few books on those and join the mastermind to improve my business. And notice that a lot of people in this mastermind who are doing self-publishing will actually romance authors and realize actually romance was the place to be when it came to self-publish. So yeah, that transitioned into romance publishing and my family really lost their minds. Then it was like, okay, we sent you to school, paid for all the school fees and you studied math and now you’re doing romance publishing. Yeah. It got really hot.
Matt Bowles: What gets you out of bed in the morning?
Ali Boone: I usually get out of bed because I get bored laying there, or I have to pee. Should I have had a more sophisticated answer for that?
Isis Love: You can have two different lives. You can be rich and famous in the Metaverse and really broken in real life, right?
Matt Bowles: You can be partying with Snoop in the Metaverse.
Isis Love: Partying with Snoop, chains on and everything.
Zein El-Amine: We would visit Nawal Saadawi in the first days in Cairo so that they still have all these ideas about what Arab women are. These ossified ideas that she kind of blew away. So, she would be talking about marriage as prostitution and all of this stuff. And there, you could see my students, there’s be smoke coming out of their ears. And one day on the second trip, one smart student had read about her ahead of time and thought she had caught her on some hypocrisy or something. And she said, you keep saying that marriage is prostitution, but you’ve been married several times.
She says, Yeah, I’ve been married three times. And she goes, well, are you married presently? And she said, yeah. And she says, well, where’s your husband? And she points because where we are in a complex of buildings, and she’s on the fifth floor. She goes; you see that fifth building down there on the seventh floor? My husband lives there. What? Why? And she goes, well, I like to have my own space to write and think and read and be on my own. And when I want love and sex and companionship, I give him a call.
Ashley Renne: He was asking me if I got the CDs he sent me. And I was like, what are you talking about? Like, nobody listens to CDs. No, I didn’t get the CDs. I was like, what CDs? He was like, CDs nuts. But I think that’s the secret to a good marriage because it’s just being with somebody that you can laugh with. And so, like yesterday, right? I don’t even remember what he was, which says a lot about me and my listening skills, because obviously I don’t listen to my husband. I just listen out for like key moments where I can say that’s what she said. And he said he came from the back, and I just started laughing uncontrollably.
Justine Abigail Yu: He happened to be visiting. Toronto again and asked if he could crash at my place for a couple of days. And I thought, oh, I remember that guy. He’s pretty cute. He can crash at my place. So, he came and crashed into my couch for exactly one night and then and we had this whirlwind romance.
Dani Dirks: I’ve loved dating while abroad because I have learned so many things about different cultures, from South African to Argentinian to Italian. As my sister says, dong’s all over the world. We can cut that.
Sean Tierney: And number 20
Matt Bowles: This may or may not determine whether you’re invited back to The Maverick Show.
Sean Tierney: No, man, I’m going to give it to Biggie. I’ll give Biggie a seat. I’ll give Biggie a seat at the table. You won me over. I listened to a bunch of his stuff.
Matt Bowles: Okay. Just behind the scenes. I may have been texting you one Biggie song per day in the week leading up to this interview. I just would drop on WhatsApp a Biggie song each day. I would just have no text preface to it. I would just drop a Biggie song, a Spotify link into your WhatsApp each day in the week leading up to this episode.
Sean Tierney: With the insinuation being, yeah, if this doesn’t wind up, there will be no fifth. Up your hands.
Ashley Hann: Oh, what I just lost? Wait, how did it up? Oh man, I just lost it. Wait, I can come back. Okay, where was I? With a funny face. With the bank and his funny face. Oh shoot. No, it’s when I’m on the spot. 20 months of Ron Dotty, whine it, whine it, Nikki on the pit is why she signed it. Well, there’s only one trap, mine did. Really, really, I don’t fuck with the CK. Fuck you, Barbie. Oh, shoot. Okay, I forgot it. I can’t do it. I need to edit that part out.
Jimmy Naraine: And what you want to do, and there are different ways to go about it. I just don’t want to overcomplicate it here because we have limited time, and We literally went for the entire bottle of wine. I wish, I mean, literally, I wish you guys could see.
Matt Bowles: Nora, we are now at the point where we’ve been drinking wine for over an hour, and I wanted to wait until we’ve been drinking wine for over an hour to ask you this next question.
Nora Dunn: Oh, here we go.
Sergio Sala: I’m also very curious for the audience listeners, if they realize when did the wine kick in?
Matt Bowles: The wine bottle is gone. It is empty. It started full and now it’s empty.
Sergio Sala: So, I want to know if you guys realized. If our voice changed, if our mood changed, maybe at the middle of it.
May Ling Lai: I don’t know. We kind of digressed. What was the actual question? Can you imagine? I feel like I’m in a beauty pageant. What was the question again? Can you repeat the question? Can you tell us about world peace? World peace is the answer. I just want world peace. I want us to all be really happy and love each other. You know, that’s what I think. That is me officially apologizing.
Matt Bowles: No, we’re going to edit the apology.
May Ling Lai: Oh no, what was the question?
Matt Bowles: All right. If you enjoyed that episode, feel free to go back and listen to the full episodes. I will link them all up in the show notes and make sure you subscribe to The Maverick Show. So, you don’t miss any episodes moving forward. Also, if you enjoyed this episode, it would mean a lot to me if you could share it. Sometimes short compilations like this are a great way for new listeners to get a quick overview of the vibe of the show. So, if you’re a fan of the show, it would be amazing if you could help spread the word. And it would also help the show out a lot if you could leave an honest rating and review on apple podcasts, even if that’s not the primary platform where you listen. Thank you in advance for that. And thank you for being a listener of The Maverick Show. I appreciate you and good night, everybody.
