Adam Riff™

1. Physical yearbooks are still a thing?

2. Ah yes, that famous Super Smash Bros. Ultimate quote.

3. Someone's top game is Brawlhalla?

Why do arcade bars only stock retro games? How many times can you play The Simpsons?

I want the atmosphere of a Barcade or Emporium with the games of a Round 1 or Dave & Busters.

Idea: An izakaya stocked only with arcade games imported from Japan, both retro and modern. Bishi Bashi would kill in a pub.

Teaching people who have been drinking how to play Fluxx is… Worst party game.

After 38-and-a-half years of warding off jury duty, I finally got summoned.

Start Date: 05-31-2021

Memorial Day?

Register at http://www.lacourt.org/jury

The website for the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles is not secure.

• Criss Angel Dives Into the Restaurant Business

Cablp (pronounced Ca-blip) — short for Criss Angel's breakfast, lunch, and pizza — opens in July with fast-casual fare and more

The three meals of the day.

How do seven people eat this?

For posterity, the video for [redacted]'s Geοrge Flοyd sοng that they scrubbed off the internet:

Oh, the dancer is on LinkedIn:

• The man who didn't invent Flamin' Hot Cheetos

For the last decade, Richard Montañez has been telling the story of how he invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos. The world has been eating it up.

It goes like this: He was working as a janitor at Frito-Lay's Rancho Cucamonga plant when he dreamed up a chile-covered Cheeto and believed in himself enough to call up the chief executive to pitch his spicy idea.

Corporate backstabbers tried to sabotage Montañez for stepping out of line, but he out-hustled them, driven by a hunger to succeed. Flamin' Hots became a runaway hit, and Montañez rose through the ranks and became an icon.

Watching his many recorded speaking engagements, it's easy to see why his story has taken off.

Montañez is a charismatic speaker, and his tale of a Mexican American underdog whose ingenuity conquered the corporate world is a rags-to-riches fable baked into the origin of a wildly popular snack.

Montañez has built a lucrative second career out of telling and selling this story, appearing at events for Target, Walmart, Harvard and USC, among others, and commanding fees of $10,000 to $50,000 per appearance.

His second memoir, Flamin' Hot: The Incredible True Story of One Man's Rise from Janitor to Top Executive, is out in June from an imprint of Penguin Random House.

A biopic based on his life, to be directed by Eva Longoria and produced by Christian super-producer DeVon Franklin for Searchlight Pictures, is set to begin filming this summer. Both the book and the movie were sold after bidding wars — Montañez's story is undeniably hot.

There's just one problem: Montañez didn't invent Flamin' Hot Cheetos, according to interviews with more than a dozen former Frito-Lay employees, the archival record and Frito-Lay itself.

"None of our records show that Richard was involved in any capacity in the Flamin' Hot test market," Frito-Lay wrote in a statement to The Times, in response to questions about an internal investigation whose existence has not been previously disclosed. "We have interviewed multiple personnel who were involved in the test market, and all of them indicate that Richard was not involved in any capacity in the test market."

Flamin' Hots were created by a team of hotshot snack food professionals starting in 1989, in the corporate offices of Frito-Lay's headquarters in Plano, Texas. The new product was designed to compete with spicy snacks sold in the inner-city mini-marts of the Midwest. A junior employee with a freshly minted MBA named Lynne Greenfeld got the assignment to develop the brand — she came up with the Flamin' Hot name and shepherded the line into existence.

Not a Mexican janitor, but a white woman with an MBA.

The core of Montañez's story rested on the pitch meeting that he says changed his life, where he sold his idea of Flamin' Hot Cheetos directly to the Frito-Lay elite. In his new memoir, he lays out a dramatic scene, with more than 100 people, most of them "leading executives," assembled alongside the CEO in a conference room at the Rancho Cucamonga complex to witness his presentation.

The Times spoke with 20 people who worked at the Frito-Lay divisions responsible for new product development 32 years ago, when Flamin' Hot Cheetos were first extruded into existence. None recalls anything like the episode Montañez describes taking place.

In telling after telling, Montañez says he felt empowered to invent Flamin' Hot Cheetos after watching a motivational video from Enrico, the CEO of the company, that encouraged all Frito-Lay workers to "act like owners" and take charge of the business.

And time after time, he says that Enrico was the CEO whom he boldly called to pitch his idea and that Enrico flew out to Rancho Cucamonga weeks later to witness his pitch in person. In his new memoir, Montañez clearly restates this claim: Enrico's name appears 60 times in the text.

But Enrico did not work at Frito-Lay when Flamin' Hot products were developed.

He dropped out of school — but not, as he has claimed in past media appearances, after the fourth grade, or, as he claims in his new memoir, before the sixth. Montañez appears to have made it to at least the ninth grade — he is listed in the freshman class section of the Chaffey High yearbook of 1972 but disappears from the area's yearbooks after that.

Around [March 1994], Montañez began working on a line of products pitched specifically at the Latino market in the Los Angeles area: Sabrositas.

Siewczynski's recollection of the Sabrositas marketing campaign aligns with what Montañez describes in his memoir — though Montañez attaches his story to Flamin' Hot products, not the Sabrositas launch.

He remembers Montañez as a colorful, engaging storyteller, well liked by all of his co-workers at the plant. And he remembers a creation story, but one that focused on Lime and Chile Fritos, not Flamin' Hot Cheetos.

In his new memoir, Montañez writes that he tapped into the local network of women hosting Tupperware parties to get Flamin' Hot Cheetos out to customers in Southern California as a way to bolster the struggling test market.

Siewczynski recalls the same story — for Sabrositas.

After the investigation and his retirement, Montañez has also repeatedly posted to his social media accounts photographs of what he claims are original design materials for Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Many have recently been deleted.

One photograph, posted to Instagram in October 2019 but now deleted, shows four pieces of lined notebook paper, labeled "mild," "reg," "hot" and "extra hot," with Cheetos piled on top of each. At the bottom of one, Montañez signed his name and wrote the date "1988."

In another post, now deleted, he wrote that he worked on the Doritos Salsa Rio flavor in 1998 — a product that first hit test markets in 1987, according to Advertising Age articles from that year.

The producers of his biopic, despite being informed of problems by Frito-Lay in 2019, announced a cast for the movie in early May, and that the film would begin shooting this summer in New Mexico.

Longoria told Variety that it has been her "biggest priority to make sure we are telling Richard Montañez's story authentically."

Latinx advocates won't like it, but the story of the mind and machinations of a man obsessed with falsely claiming to be the inventor of Flamin' Hot Cheetos is a much more interesting film than an inspirational biopic.

Shattered Glass 2: Flamin' Hot Boogaloo.

Previously on Adam Riff™:

Look at this fucking pool deck:

// Las Vegas, NV

A tale of two pool decks. You have to pass through a metal detector to enter Stadium Swim.

Circa is home to the largest sportsbook in the world, the largest pool amphitheatre in America, and the longest indoor bar in Nevada. No facial tissue in its rooms, though.

All the standalone cocktail lounges on Strip casino floors look the same, but were designed by different firms.

Massage girls are back! At least, downtown.

Tilman Fertitta is a broke boy who owns Golden Nugget Las Vegas, which owns the biggest gold nugget in existence.

Oh, it's only worth, like, $1.6 million.

Replicas of the nugget are on display at a number of Golden Nugget casinos. [source]

For the second time, I witnessed someone get a royal flush playing Pai Gow Poker.

I got bailed out by a five of a kind playing DJ Wild.

Has NBCUniversal tried to license The Office and Fast and Furious as slot machine themes?

Previously on Adam Riff™:

// Las Vegas, NV

Meow Wolf should've known better than to, in Vegas, populate singular computer stations with lengthy contextual videos and reading material. Good luck completing the Omega Mart experience on a weekend.

The celebrity chefs with restaurants at Paris Las Vegas are British and Italian.

Secret Nobu at Bally's? No, just an interim Nobu.

The Vegas Strip needs more secret bars and restaurants. Almost all of them [six!] are at the Cosmopolitan.

Two Louis Vuitton stores at Bellagio? Oh. One is men's, one is women's.

Planet Hollywood has two virtual female concierges – Ivy for the hotel and Jules for the mall.

Two of the top three highest grossing restaurants in Vegas are located at the remote end of the Strip.

Playing DJ Wild at Flamingo, I won $1000 on a flush bad beat against the dealer's four of a kind. My biggest haul to date.

// Las Vegas, NV

A census of mask usage on the Vegas Strip would be interesting. Mask over nose. Mask under nose. No mask in sight. Age. Gender. Race.

What is the appeal of just lying in the sun around a pool?

When workers at a Vegas resort need a smoke break, they just have to go to the casino – except at Park MGM.

While playing DJ Wild at Harrah's, a man at a neighbouring Mississippi Stud table hit a straight flush progressive jackpot and won ~$60,000. He had to sign some form.

At Aria, I saw a man at a Pai Gow Poker table signing a form. Did he hit a jackpot? I wondered. I approached the table. A $300 minimum bet?! In the general casino? [The dealer forbade me from snapping a photo.] The highest Pai Gow Power minimum I'd ever seen is $50. Does this table normally exist? Was it a special request, hence the form?

A remix of "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)"? Who programs the music for Taco Bell Cantina?

DJ Whyt spinning in a corner of the Drybar at the Cosmopolitan on a Saturday afternoon.

Custom matching T-shirts, plastic yard cups – what happens in Vegas stays in landfills.