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literally all alcohol though. Yeah,

1:01

but some of it's like a cordial, so

1:04

it counts as a syrup, right? You

1:06

can drink how many of those? So many.

1:10

Hey guys. Hey. Okay,

1:14

so why is no one like saying anything

1:17

or doing any pre-show shenanigans

1:19

stuff? Oh, well this week's essay

1:21

is about a guy who doesn't really contribute as much to

1:23

the team. And we all

1:25

contribute to the team. Yeah, like a

1:27

lot. Noah and Tom write most of the stories

1:29

we cover on the show. And I mean, they

1:32

are really funny dudes. Yeah, okay,

1:34

yeah. And he says essays are some of

1:36

the most liked essays we do. And he

1:38

has hilarious final questions. I get it, yeah.

1:41

I mean, and Eli, he writes most of,

1:43

pretty much all of the sketches. Well,

1:46

he just does that so he could insult people and get away

1:48

with it. Like leaving an emoji

1:50

in a Facebook comment. Well, Eli can also

1:52

do a Marky Mark voice. Nice.

1:57

Nothing else to add? No. Cecil,

2:00

you edit

2:02

the show. That's it. I'm

2:04

the editor. Editing isn't easy.

2:08

Yeah, I'd probably take some time. You

2:11

know, you can just hire an editor. We're

2:14

just kidding. We think you're funny

2:17

too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Puns are

2:20

funny. Let's not go too far, Tom. Okay,

2:23

cool. Yeah. I'm going to go get a soda. I'll be right back

2:25

and then we can record. You

2:29

know, perhaps we could just get an editor. It might

2:31

be cheaper. One vote, two votes, Tom. I'm

2:34

pretending not to hear you so I can still maintain a friendship.

2:38

Three votes. I heard that! Fuck.

2:41

Shit. Hello

2:57

and welcome. Citation needed. Podcast where we

2:59

choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia,

3:01

and pretend we're experts. Because

3:04

this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm

3:06

Eli Bosnick and I'll be faking it till I'm making it

3:08

tonight, but I'll need some gents ready to pound the pitch.

3:12

First up, a man who always works stoned and a fellow who always stones work,

3:14

Noah and Tom. I

3:18

may know some of the things that I'm doing,

3:20

but I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm

3:23

not. I'm not. That

3:26

made no sense at all, but sure. It makes way more

3:29

sense if you work stoned, man. Thank you. And

3:34

also joining us tonight, the punsman making this

3:36

shit look easy will resent them from the

3:38

bench, Cecil and Heath. It's

3:40

a rivalry on this podcast. It's the quips

3:42

and the bloods. Bon-mosa-nostra.

3:50

Okay. No, no, we didn't.

3:54

That's pretty solid. That's pretty solid. Now, before we begin

3:56

tonight, I'd like to take a moment

3:58

to. Thank our

4:00

patrons patrons without you. We'd be discovered

4:02

as the frauds we are, but your

4:04

money keeps the ruse up. And for that we're

4:07

eternally grateful. And if you'd like

4:09

to be part of our cover, be sure to stick

4:11

around to the end of the show and with that

4:13

out of the way, tell us Tom, what person, place,

4:15

thing, concept, phenomenon, or event will we

4:17

be talking about today? Today

4:20

we'll be discussing Carlos Kaiser and I

4:22

am not at all jealous. And Noah,

4:24

you scope this story out. Are you

4:26

ready to give us the

4:28

lowdown? Sure. Let's kick things

4:31

off. So who is Carlos

4:33

Kaiser? Carlos Kaiser is

4:35

the nickname of Carlos Henrique Raposo,

4:38

a Brazilian footballer who had an unexceptional career that

4:40

ran from 1979 to 1992. And

4:44

why are you making me listen to a

4:46

story about an unexceptional Brazilian soccer player? Oh,

4:48

uh, Eli's his linguistics episode. He's going to

4:50

try to convince us that unexceptional and soccer

4:52

player isn't a redundancy. Holy shit. Okay.

4:55

Yeah, it's a roundabout. Holy shit. And

4:58

yeah, most of the world hates you. They

5:01

start off hating me. No, that's fair.

5:03

That's fair. Right. The rest of the world. Here's

5:05

a grenade. So,

5:09

okay. The reason I'm doing it though, for realsies

5:11

is because when I did my ice bowl episode,

5:14

I made an offhand comment about how I'd be

5:16

happy to do a story about the sport that

5:18

the rest of the world calls football. If somebody

5:20

could provide me with a football story that was

5:22

as interesting as my football story. And

5:24

within like seven minutes of

5:27

that episode coming out, friend of the

5:29

show, Michael Marshall, messaged me a link

5:31

to Carlos Kaiser's Wikipedia page. Okay.

5:33

But if Carlos Kaiser is unexceptional,

5:35

why is he worth a citation needed

5:37

episode? Because he's exceptionally

5:40

unexceptional. In fact, over

5:42

the course of his 13 year professional career, he

5:44

played for as many as 11 different

5:47

football clubs and scored a record setting or

5:49

at the very least record tying zero

5:52

goals. In fact, he

5:54

made a record tying zero appearances

5:56

and there is in fact, no.

6:00

evidence anywhere in the world that

6:02

he can even play football other

6:04

than the fact that he made his living at it for at least

6:06

13 years. Oh, didn't

6:08

work for 13 years. Still got

6:10

paid a hero's tale. I'm

6:13

in. Right. Love it. Okay. So

6:16

before I jump into this guy's story, I want to

6:18

make it clear that he's a fucking liar. And as

6:20

is so often the case with fucking liars, it's really

6:22

hard to piece together the truth about him, especially

6:25

because like at a certain point in his career,

6:27

he like came clean about all the lying that

6:29

he'd done, but then he lied

6:31

about all the lying. So

6:34

now I'm going to do my best to

6:36

disentangle the truth from all the bullshit. I'm

6:38

not Eli over here, but take everything I

6:40

say in this essay with a grain of

6:43

salt, except the part about Eli that I

6:45

meant. Thank you. Wait, all resumes are exaggerations,

6:47

Noah, and you can trust me on this

6:49

or I don't have a PhD in organic

6:51

chemistry, but

6:54

I am proficient in

6:57

chocolate. I say about

6:59

him. I'm medium at

7:01

in chocolate. No, I've seen. I've seen.

7:04

I've seen this. No, that's medium. Okay.

7:06

So Carlos Henry Groposo was born a

7:08

day late at an inch on actually,

7:10

I'll be honest or

7:13

myself every time. All right. So Carlos

7:15

Henry Groposo was born a day late

7:17

on April 2nd of 1963. And like

7:19

pretty much every Brazilian boy growing up

7:21

in the sixties and seventies, he was

7:24

obsessed with soccer, which I'm

7:26

mostly going to remember to call football

7:28

during this essay. And Carlos was a

7:30

very athletic kid. So he played football

7:32

and he was pretty good at the

7:34

parts that didn't involve the ball, which

7:37

granted are not very many of the parts, but

7:39

like when it came to like running up and

7:41

down the field and having the stamina to be

7:43

high energy late in the game, he excelled. And

7:45

when you're a kid, that's enough

7:47

to make the team. My selling point as a

7:49

soccer player is that I continually run in circles

7:51

like that one dog at the dog park. Yeah.

7:54

That's fine. My selling point was that if I run

7:56

more than 18 yards on the field, I'm going to

7:58

be able to do that. And

18:01

then we play Madrid

18:03

on Wednesday. Ooh,

18:08

that'll be a tough one. Yeah,

18:10

definitely. Hey, hey, what's up team?

18:12

Good hustle out there. Hey, man,

18:14

thanks. Oh, hi. I wish

18:16

I was out there with you all on the court. You

18:19

mean like pitch, man? On the

18:21

pitch? Yes. Indeed I do right on

18:23

the pitch. Do you? I

18:25

feel like you split the whole season on the bench, man. Indeed

18:28

I have. Of course, this hamstring of

18:30

mine. That's your calf

18:32

that you're holding. Yes, yes, it is. So

18:34

great, it's my pain. I

18:37

feel my hamstring all the way up here

18:39

in my calf. Your hamstring is above your

18:41

calf though, on your leg. It certainly feels

18:43

that way sometimes. Okay, you've been sitting on

18:45

the bench like the whole season. You have

18:47

all these weird injuries. Just

18:50

kind of seems like you're making it up. Gentlemen,

18:54

look, I know things look bleak, but

18:57

this is what our enemies want. They want us to

18:59

doubt each other. They want us to doubt ourselves. They're

19:02

afraid of us because in our

19:04

hearts we are brothers. Yeah,

19:07

sure. I guess we are

19:09

brothers. Now, let's get out there and

19:12

score a home run. Do

19:16

you mean goal? No, my friend.

19:19

I only go. Okay. And

19:22

we're back. When

19:29

we left off, Carlos

19:31

had faked it and makes

19:34

it. But

19:41

we know this story happened, so something

19:44

has to change eventually. Tell us what

19:46

happened, Noah. Okay, so by

19:48

1985, Carlos has played for four

19:50

soccer teams in three countries, probably.

19:53

I'm sorry, he actually hasn't played for any of

19:55

them, but he's been under contract with all of

19:57

them. long.

26:01

So after the game, Caster burst

26:03

into the locker room and he's like, what the

26:05

hell was that? And Kaiser's like, look, I get

26:07

that you're mad and you have every right to

26:09

be, but just, just hear me out. I

26:11

could not stand by and tolerate

26:14

those people saying all those terrible

26:16

things about

26:18

you. He's

26:21

like, he's like, Dr. Caster, you're like

26:23

a father to me. And they were

26:25

calling you a thief and a criminal.

26:27

And I just, I couldn't help myself.

26:29

I had to defend you. And at

26:31

least according to the testimony we have,

26:33

Caster is so flattered by that, that

26:35

he ends up extending Kaiser's fucking contract.

26:37

This is like every fucking butt weasel

26:40

that avoids a layoff by playing racquetball

26:42

with a boss motherfuckers.

26:44

Okay. Some people do it

26:46

well. Like when Tom has to go on

26:48

golf outings with his grownup job, he

26:50

spends the entire time telling everybody he

26:52

hates them, but they just think he's

26:54

ready. So like, huh? No, of

26:57

course flattered or no, Caster still wants rid

26:59

of the guy. He's, he's expensive baggage. So

27:01

when he found himself heavily indebted to a

27:04

different Brazilian gangster football club owner, he

27:06

was like, Hey, instead of paying you, what if I

27:08

just loaned you a bunch of my best players for

27:10

a season so that you could win a championship and

27:13

the other crime boss, this guy named Emil

27:15

Pinero, he's like, I love this

27:17

fight. Got idea. So he agrees to take

27:19

several actual good players, but included in this

27:21

package is Kaiser. It's like

27:23

a Facebook marketplace ad after a

27:25

divorce, just like 80 inch

27:27

flat screen, $5, but you have

27:30

to take fucking TV stand made

27:32

of samurai swords. My idiot ex-husband.

27:35

You have to take

27:37

that. So that actually sounds pretty great. I'll take it.

27:39

That sounds fucking awesome.

27:41

I would, I would buy that

27:43

in a Sarah, Sarah posted. The,

27:45

I don't know, break this to

27:47

you. Now Pinero is an interesting dude

27:49

in his own right. He's a short guy

27:51

with a bad hair piece that notoriously comes

27:53

loose when he's angry, but he also,

27:55

and this is far more what he's known for,

27:58

had a very early version of of a penis

28:00

implant. So this was back

28:03

before there was such a thing as Viagra.

28:05

There was no pharmaceutical treatment for impotence, but

28:07

you could get a penis implant that

28:09

allows you to sort of pump up

28:12

your dick in order to

28:14

mimic an erection. And

28:16

apparently- Up your dick. Yeah, yeah,

28:18

right, no. So it's the- Inflation

28:20

adjusted. Nice. But

28:24

apparently Pinero had one of these, but not like a

28:26

good one. It was like

28:28

an early attempt at the inflatable

28:30

erection. And yes, this is actually

28:33

relevant to the story. Okay, Reebok

28:35

pump sneakers have a weird backstory.

28:37

Right? That

28:40

was a hard pivot. For the- For

28:42

the- For the- For

28:44

the- For the- For the- For

28:46

the- For the- For

28:48

the- For the- For the- For

28:51

the- For the- For the- For

28:53

the- For the- For

28:56

the- For the- For the

28:58

club. And what that mostly meant practically was

29:00

that he just knew a bunch of sex

29:02

workers, but he quickly became like the pimp

29:04

for the team. And that

29:06

included finding women for- For Pinero. And

29:09

then, warning them about his weird

29:11

inflatable erection that he was going to have to

29:14

like pump his ballsack or whatever before sex. That

29:16

was apparently- That is how they- That's actually how

29:18

they were- Wow. The pump was in the ball?

29:20

Yeah, it's the third one. I believe the pump

29:22

was at the ball, yeah. Where did the pee

29:25

go? It's- Apparently

29:27

Pinero was like too self-conscious to tell

29:30

women about that himself. So basically he

29:32

kept Kaiser on the payroll for like

29:34

seasons just to explain his dick to

29:37

his would-be fuck partners. This is actually

29:39

Congress's job to get the American working

29:41

class ready for the billionaires. Oh

29:44

yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay.

29:46

Okay. Don't worry about condoms, but

29:48

bring a tire gauge. Is that

29:51

what you said? That's what- Yeah.

29:54

I feel like we just put like an automatic one on there

29:56

and just do it with a clapper. You just like- There

29:58

you go. There you go. They didn't

30:00

have that one back in the 80s. You hate to

30:02

go to the gas station though. That's the one that's

30:04

embarrassing. If you go to football games all the fucking

30:06

time, you can't have that one. If you clap your

30:09

cheeks though, then it starts to deflate. You're like, no,

30:11

do it again. No. Why

30:14

do you keep saying the clap? That feels weird. That's

30:16

not... So,

30:20

but that kind of shit though, that is as

30:22

much of an explanation of how we managed to

30:24

keep this con going as anything else. Like when

30:27

I was a younger man, I was the member

30:29

of a lot of bands where everybody was

30:31

like way too good musically for me to

30:33

be in the band. But

30:36

I always had the best drug connections, so they

30:38

kept me around. Right? So

30:40

like Carlos Kaiser, he didn't do drugs, he didn't drink,

30:42

but he had hella connections when it came to women.

30:44

But also, he was just a fun guy to party

30:46

with. He always knew where the

30:48

best clubs were going to be, where the best

30:51

biggest parties were. He also came in handy

30:53

when you needed a scapegoat. Like at

30:55

one point, one of his teammates got into a fight at

30:57

a nightclub and was going to face a suspension by the

31:00

league if he got caught. So, Kaiser

31:02

stepped in because he was always looking for

31:04

a good suspension and he pretended it was

31:06

him that took the punishment. And the

31:08

guy, the teammate was just like, oh, what

31:10

a great guy taking my suspension for

31:13

me. I

31:16

like that he's renowned for being a ladies man,

31:19

but with sex workers, everyone

31:21

with cash is a ladies

31:23

man. When you're paying

31:25

the ladies, yeah, McDonald's

31:27

gives me a burger every time I order

31:29

and pay for one. I

31:31

don't have an internet McDonald's. I call

31:34

you a burger man all the time.

31:36

But again,

31:40

this is the same guy that's paying ball boys

31:42

to get, you know, fans to yell Kaiser, Kaiser,

31:44

Kaiser during the practices. He's just doing the same

31:46

shit with sex workers. No, this is my friend.

31:48

I know her. She just likes

31:50

you. Yeah. So

31:52

for years, despite being perpetually suspended or injured,

31:54

he managed to cling to the edges of

31:56

the locker rooms. He told good stories. He

31:58

made friends. pretty easily. So when

32:01

one team would cut him invariably, some friend that

32:03

had moved on to another team would get him

32:05

a tryout at that new team and

32:07

he could start the con cycle all over

32:09

again. And once he got in, like, truly,

32:12

I can't believe it worked for 13 years.

32:14

So good. Technically, it worked

32:16

for a lot longer than that. Yeah. But so

32:19

once he got in, he could very often keep his

32:21

position just by being a handy guy to have around

32:23

the locker room. Hell, at one point

32:25

he got a six month contract with a team

32:27

and his whole fucking... Like holes in the walls in the

32:29

locker room. Yeah. Tom,

32:31

it's not much. That's not much of

32:33

an exaggeration. He got a contract one time where his

32:36

whole job was just to try to keep one

32:38

of their actual star players from drinking. Yeah.

32:41

We tried that with Heath once, but

32:43

he kept trying to kill himself. So we

32:45

stopped. It was adorable. Like a

32:47

little mouse. No, he's projecting.

32:53

Of course, he never made big money on

32:55

any of these contracts. He was always

32:57

at or close to the league minimum.

32:59

But given his pension for self promotion,

33:01

he was still able to parlay these

33:03

relatively minor signings into a major profit.

33:05

He basically got himself on every football

33:07

TV show in Brazil and became this

33:09

incredibly recognizable face of the game despite

33:11

again, never having fucking played it. But

33:14

he knew all the right people. He had

33:16

this outsized personality that TV shows love. And

33:19

he had the kind of perpetual availability that

33:21

actual footballers who have to show up at

33:23

practice and gameplay can only dream of. But

33:26

ultimately, it was his pension for TV coverage

33:28

that got him caught because when he

33:30

was on TV, they would want him to tell stories

33:32

about his time playing

33:34

football, which he didn't actually

33:36

have. So he would just tell stories of

33:39

shit that other players did. And eventually

33:41

people would be like, man,

33:43

that was a different guy. Or if he timed

33:46

it bad enough, man, that was me. So,

33:50

so eventually people started to catch on

33:53

and both the managers and the TV

33:55

producer stopped calling him. So that's when

33:57

he sold his story to a production

33:59

company. got a documentary made

34:01

about himself called Kaiser, the greatest

34:03

footballer never to play football, where

34:05

he greatly exaggerates how successful his

34:08

fucking con was even, to

34:10

a degree that it almost qualifies as

34:12

a separate con. He's my

34:15

best friend. Amazing. And

34:17

if you had to summarize what you've learned

34:19

in one sentence, no illusions, what would it

34:21

be? I learned that I am a professional

34:23

synchronized swimmer. Indeed

34:25

you are Noah. Are you ready for the quiz?

34:27

Damn right I am. All right

34:29

Noah, of the other nicknames

34:31

for Carlos Kaiser, which one is my

34:34

favorite? A, Lio

34:36

Messi, B, Shillian Mbappe, C, Diego Marafona,

34:44

D, Conal Diño,

34:46

or E, Over Pele. Bam.

34:54

Amazing. I love that you had to do this

34:56

with like only the soccer players that our audience

34:58

might break. Yeah, it's a hard joke. My question

35:00

is still got a vibe of them. I'm

35:03

going to go with E though, Over Pele. Correct,

35:05

well done. Okay Noah, what

35:07

was the nickname of the other guy that skated

35:09

along with the team and didn't get play time?

35:12

A, On Striker, B, Amid

35:15

Builder, C, A-Sist, or D. A-Sist

35:21

is awesome. A-Sist is awesome.

35:25

A-Sist is so fun. C,

35:29

Y, S, T. Or

35:33

D, or D, goalie

35:35

polly. All

35:39

right, anything that gets the high-pitched laugh out

35:41

of the hat you'd be right, it is

35:43

C, A-Sist. It's

35:47

correct. All

35:50

right Noah, then he might view Carlos Kaiser

35:52

as a liar and a con man, but I don't.

35:54

Why? A, he would

35:57

have had the exact same career if he

35:59

had just played baseball. B or

36:01

been a junior backend developer. C

36:04

that's right. I said a junior developer.

36:06

Sure. One out of 50 of

36:09

you are competent, but the rest of you

36:11

just chat GPT stuck on sexual harasser mode.

36:13

D you don't even know C plus plus

36:15

you big phonics. It's her. Wow.

36:20

The correct answer is not what happened.

36:22

There's definitely not asking for an elaboration.

36:24

So I'm going to go a the

36:26

baseball one. That is correct.

36:28

All right. What is pin

36:30

heroes? Favorite song? A

36:34

pumped up dicks. Go

36:38

no further. Tom. It is

36:40

a perfect joke. Yeah. All

36:42

right. Well, Tom said pumped up dicks, which

36:45

means he's the winner. All right. Cecil,

36:48

let's pump up your dick. You can go

36:50

next. Caliente. Let's do it. It's

36:52

the middle ball, by the way. It's just the

36:55

middle ball. Yeah. Be careful.

36:57

You don't get that wrong. All right. Well, for

36:59

Tom, Noah, Heath and Cecil, I'm Eli Bosniak. Thank

37:02

you for hanging out with us this week. Today

37:04

we'll be back next week. And by next

37:06

week, I'll keep it. I'm

37:10

keeping it. All right. It

37:13

was all written by the LLM that

37:16

Eli coded. Yeah. For the

37:18

paramedics. Yeah. All right.

37:20

Well, for Tom, Noah, Heath and Cecil, I'm Eli

37:22

Bosniak. Thank you for hanging out with us today.

37:24

We'll be back next week. And by then, Cecil

37:26

will be an expert on something else. Between now

37:28

and then, you can listen to us on our

37:30

podcast in the places with your faces. And

37:33

if you'd like to help keep the

37:35

show going, you can make a per

37:38

episode donation at patreon.com/citation pod or

37:40

leave us a five star review everywhere you can. And

37:43

if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out

37:45

past episodes, connect with us on social media or check the

37:47

show notes. Be sure to check out citation pod.com. So

37:55

Carlos, what's this big controversy you wanted to tell

37:57

us about? Yeah. And what

37:59

is it? Well, gentlemen, at the end

38:01

of the last half, I caught one of our

38:04

enemy players choosing his

38:06

hands on the ball. Um, yeah.

38:09

Yeah, man. That's the goalie. He's

38:11

allowed to do that. Hey,

38:15

who wants to have sex with some prostitutes? Huh?

38:17

I can have sex with some prostitutes. Sounds great,

38:20

man. But they better know about my penis. Everybody

38:23

knows about your penis, man. It's

38:25

a thing. We all know. This

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