The Infamous Russian "Machine" Story

A long while back I heard comedian Bert Kreischer tell a story on Joe Rogan's podcast in which he befriended Russian mobsters during a Florida State class trip. It is one of the craziest experiences I have ever heard coming out of a study abroad program, and maybe even ever. I even found a animation that portrays the story in a South Park-ian narrative. A little background on BK from Wikipedia is below the video window.

 

"In 1997, he was featured in Rolling Stone as the "top partier" at Florida State University, the "top party school in the US", while he was in his sixth year of college. The Rolling Stone article was the inspiration for the 2002 movie Van Wilder."

"Kreischer appeared as a guest on the Joe Rogan Experience and revealed that the story of National Lampoon's Van Wilder was loosely based on his own life. After the Rolling Stone article was written about Kreischer's "party" lifestyle, he had gotten the attention of Oliver Stone, who had wished to develop a film based on his life. Upon receiving numerous script submissions, the deal had apparently fallen apart and all the writers had retained the intellectual rights to their work. One of these writers had supposedly changed Kreischer's name on their script and sold it to National Lampoon which eventually became the basis for Van Wilder. He also revealed this two years earlier on the Jay Thomas Show on Sirius Satellite Radio."