 Welcome to the Original Gangsters podcast. I'm your host, Scott Bernstein. We're gonna go out to South Philly and South Florida to discuss the Joy Merlino podcast. The show goes on. There was some speculation last week when news broke that the skinny Joy Merlino's very popular, somewhat controversial podcast and social media brand. Has parted ways in their business relationship with Action Park Media, which was the media platform ran by Kevin Connelly, the Hollywood actor and director from the show Entourage. He has Action Park Media with some backers and they're the ones that decided to invest in the skinny and platform. The reputed Mafia Don of the Philadelphia La Cosa Nostra podcast started in August. It's getting quite a bit of traction in the niche. It's got a rabid following of Joey followers and lovers and it's a lot of fun getting to kind of hang out with Joey and that's what a lot of this has become. But he no longer has the backing of Kevin Connelly and Action Park Media. I want to report on a couple of things that I've been able to dig up behind the scenes on this. I'll credit Jeff Nadu over at Sit Down News for breaking this news. But the more I kind of, it's not everything that meets the eye. I think there's all this buzzing controversy that I acknowledge I've helped stir up. And there might be the belief from looking at this news last week that this had something to do with the podcast controversy and people being, according to my sources, upset people in New York, some people in Joey's own camp in South Philly. And that's just not the case. It has nothing to do with that. This was just strictly business. There was no pressure being put on Kevin Connelly's people. It had nothing to do with a Instagram post a day or two before the announcement of Kevin Connelly hanging out with a informant Chris Pachello from the Brooklyn Bonanno faction. This was just, you know, just business and two parties that worked together for six or seven months and didn't want to continue working with each other for whatever reason. So I also can report that there's new financing and this is this is a train that's going to keep rolling. Last week they put out their Thursday episode just like they always do. They'll put out a Thursday episode this week. It's interesting to note that last week they brought on a longtime Philly underworld figure slash stand up comedian slash colorful Merlino confidant Ralphie had a bruisey and Ralphie had and Joey got pinched together in like 99 running stolen merch scams in like South Philly parking lots and storage lots. They were selling bikes and baby formula and electric fans. And the one that I really got a kick out of was back in 1999 if you went to Ralphie had who was running point on that for Joey, you could get a North Carolina Nike track suit that was at that point going for $6065 right now. It's probably going for a buck 60 200 bucks. You could get it for five bucks in South Philly in the summer of 1998, but you know Ralphie came on and the show goes on full steam ahead. He's not slowing down. He doesn't care what anybody says and more power to him. So just wanted to report what I'm hearing and he's celebrating his birthday this weekend. So happy birthday Joey Merlino. OG pod Scott Bernstein.