Episode 117: In These Strange and Uncertain Times
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Time Crisis in a time of crisis and the crisis still has time to crisis.
This week we get deep with Nathan, the man behind the Stakem's Twitter account.
We also check in with Brian Jones, the Vampire Weekend guitarist. All this plus
the Bellamy Brothers.
Time Crisis back again. What's up Jake? The usual. Same old, same old. Living my
quarantine life. When people ask me how I'm doing I always say business as usual
but I guess I would say that no matter what. I like to say same old, same old
business as usual. I find that sometimes people say how you doing and say not bad
and 1 in 20 people will be like taking it back. I think like 19 out of 20 people
be like good to hear and other people be like not bad. That doesn't sound great.
I'm pretty into just saying pretty solid as a response. How you doing? Pretty solid.
That's very Jake. Just solid. But pretty solid. Solid as a rock when you're really
feeling like you got your s*** together. How are you guys opening emails these days?
Are you saying like you're doing well in these strange and uncertain times? You know there's always a variation of that.
I was gonna say that was very unusual and Seinfeld just jumping right in but I was
about to say I heard before the show that Seinfeld was pretty fired up today.
Oh I'm charged up you guys. I love this. Well okay Seinfeld before we get to your
fascinating question about opening emails, why are you so fired up man?
I'm just stoked to see you guys that's all it is. I've caffeinated, I had a good meal
and I'm just energized and just ready for an intense new time crisis. That's
all it is. Well I guess a lot of times back in the old world when we'd record TC
sometimes you'd be rolling after a full day of work. That's correct. Some people
probably think that you're just some you know watch Seinfeld all night sleep all
day kind of weirdo who lives in like some replica Seinfeld apartment. Okay hang on.
No no I'm just saying I'm saying that's what the haters would say.
But you're a very hard-working guy as long as I've known you you've always had
an intense job. Seinfeld is your passion but you know you're out there providing.
It's exhausting. Well thank you yeah. I don't know if people realize that you're
a hustler. All day. What do you drink in there? Are you drinking coffee right now?
Coffee or wine? This is Coca-Cola. That's like out of a wine glass. No this is a
normal glass. I think that's a stemless wine glass. Wait wait hold up the glass.
That's a stemless wine glass. Yep confirmed. You know I've never considered
I've been using these glasses for years and I've never considered them as such.
So hold on. Jake do you want to describe it to the listeners? It's a bulbous glass.
Right because it's kind of rounder at the bottom. It's got a pear-shaped
bottom. If like the sides were totally straight you'd be like that's for water
or yeah yeah exactly. Hard alcohol. And so he's drinking soda out of a wine glass
and you know what respect. I don't know if I really agree with this
characterization of the glass that I'm using. I think that the angle might be a little off.
Maybe the roles are reversed today. You came in here fired up. I might have to
crunch some numbers. I'm on Google right now. This is Freaky Friday.
Alright I just crunched the numbers and I just want to let you in on some of my
methods. I googled stemless wine glasses but then I clicked over to images. Look
obviously we do radio here so I don't actually buy the myth that a picture is
worth a thousand words because I think we do quite a bit with words. Sometimes
more than a picture but for me sometimes when I'm researching I find that if I go
to images first it can sometimes save me a few clicks. Especially if what I'm
looking up has to do with what something looks like. You know I might not need the
whole history. I might not need the whole Wikipedia page. So that's just one of my
number crunching tricks. I guess you call it like that. That makes a lot of sense Ezra. That makes a lot of sense.
Thank You Jake. So anyway I type in stemless wine glasses. I immediately
click over to images. I don't have time for all that. I don't care about
shopping or news. So I go right to images and based on the pictures that I'm
seeing. Seinfeld you got yourself a stemless wine glass right there.
And you know what I have done the exact same Google image search that you have
and I have to say you're absolutely right. But I also feel like we've gotten
derailed. So you admit it. Okay hold on. So you admit it. You're drinking out of a
stemless wine glass. Hold on. I just want to do that. Remember that meme from a few years ago.
Ladies and gentlemen we got them.
So you just have cans of coke in the fridge? Not all the time. Sometimes I'll
have like a Mexican coke. It comes and goes. Sometimes I'll be like I'm drinking
too much coke and I'll stop for a few weeks. Sometimes I'm stocked up. It sounds
like that's a regular grocery item in your household. I'd say not every time.
But you know I don't know how interesting this is guys. I was just
trying to start off with a very relatable like how are you opening emails these days.
Because I feel like there's a tendency to say I hope you're doing well.
Well okay well hold on. My first question to you was why are you so fired up? And I
think one answer we got is that you're just guzzling coke from a stemless
wine glass. So that's definitely part of it. Okay so your question for us was how
are we opening email these days? Like are we using Outlook? Which device?
No I mean how are you beginning the emails that you compose when you
communicate with your your friends and associates? Oh well like I said you're a
hard-working person with a real job so you're probably busting out way more
dear sir or madams to whom it may concern. It hasn't crossed my mind. I
don't really have to send a lot of emails. I guess I've had other forms of
communication like if I'm texting with somebody we haven't talked in a while.
For me it's less in the beginning it's more at the end where it's just like you
know by the way I hope you're doing good with all this crazy stuff going on. Just
to not let a whole communication pass without some reference to the pandemic
which I'm sure is what everybody wants. Jake you send a lot of emails? I don't
initiate a lot of emails. I respond to emails and most of the emails I've been
getting recently do usually open or close with a reference to the
coronavirus and I when I respond I make no reference to the virus at all. Yeah
you see I did this the other day where I decided to forego the strange and
uncertain times opening and/or closer and the person who replied to me a little
bit passive-aggressively really leaned in hard on the I hope you're doing well
in these strange and uncertain times and then I felt bad I thought oh I thought it
was implied at this point several weeks in that I hope they were doing well in
these strange and uncertain times but I don't know maybe I'm just being a little
oversensitive because the times are strange and uncertain. You know people
sometimes have the email signature like sent from my iPhone or you know with
your bit and some details about your job and stuff you could put one end to saying
like the above was written in the context of the strange and uncertain
times we're living in please don't mistake any lack of reference for a
callousness or aloofness on my part I'm very aware of it that way you don't have
to reference it. I saw I was thinking of time crisis because and some of what
we're gonna get into today we got the Stakehams guy coming which is a major
get. Huge. We're kind of on fire with the guests lately I gotta say but I saw this
on Instagram I think it was a tweet from Internet Hippo I could open my camera
roll and look at it but I think it's a more interesting for the listeners if I
just kind of paraphrase it it was basically somebody saying normal times
Toyota ad buy a Toyota and then like COVID times and it said like in these
strange and uncertain times dot dot dot buy a Toyota. I was like yeah that kind of sums it up.
I travel lonely way from here Calming restless mind
Easing all of their, all of their fear A strange time here
A strange time here
I think it's worth just reflecting on last week's episode for a second because we had the great Jerry Saltz on Art Critic for New York Magazine.
We mostly talked about his love of gas station coffee and art criticism, but at the end we got into a little bit of Grateful Dead.
And I just thought it was interesting. Somebody added me on his Instagram where he responded to a question of like, what's like the most epic you've ever seen in a
concert?
And it was kind of interesting because on our show he was going on about like, forget about the 60s, enough with the 60s worship.
And when they asked him what his favorite, the most epic things he'd ever witnessed in concert, this is what the Grateful Dead hating forget about the 60s Jerry Saltz
had to say.
These are the three most epic things he's ever seen at a concert.
Number one, Jimi Hendrix, light his guitar on fire, place it on the ground, face it on his knees and worship it.
Number two, Jim Morrison created giant riot in Chicago, threatening to pull it out.
Number three, Led Zeppelin as third backup band playing entire first album to a room of 60 in Chicago.
All three of those examples are in the 60s, man.
You're living in the past, Jerry.
Well, look, I don't want to call him an enemy of the show. I want him to be a friend of the show. And you know what? You don't have to like the Grateful Dead to be a friend of the
show.
But he backtracked a little bit and it helps.
And in fact, people probably think we talk about the Grateful Dead a little bit too much on the show.
And you know what? They might be partially right.
But I was thinking, because I was reflecting on the fact that we had these two different interviews on the last episode.
And in both of them, the subject was asked if they liked the Grateful Dead.
To be fair, one guy's name was Jerry and one guy's a famous musician, Ed O'Brien from Radiohead.
So, you know, it's not like super random.
But I think little by little, we'll kind of develop the time crisis version of the Proust questionnaire.
The writer Marcel Proust had this questionnaire that people would fill out and everybody answers the same question.
So it's kind of interesting to see what people say.
Over the years, Vanity Fair has used it as a way to interview people.
You have variations on it from the TV show Inside the Actor's Studio, Rest in Peace, James Lipton.
I think it is important to limit the amount of Grateful Dead talk. Let it happen organically.
It does.
It does. It comes up organically pretty often.
But I think when interviewing people, it got me thinking about like, little by little, we got to create kind of like a TC Proust questionnaire.
Because, you know, you ask people questions that are tailored to them and, you know, to find out who they are and what they do.
But at some point, you got to ask everybody the same question because that's actually lets you know more.
So I think one of the TC Proust questionnaire questions is, "What do you think of the Grateful Dead?"
And, you know, it's cool when people don't like the dead. That actually, you know, says a lot about.
I think in every case, we've asked somebody that it opens up an interesting conversation.
I was saying that some other one, I mean, Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Maybe I said O'Brien that. I don't know. Maybe that's a little gimmicky.
Maybe we can refine that like a food question.
A snack food question in general.
Yeah, maybe some kind of snack food question.
Another one I thought of, which we haven't asked people very often is, "Did you vote for Bernie?"
Which, you know, people might find contentious.
Personal.
It's personal, but I would just like want to know. You know what I mean?
Just like if you talk to somebody, whatever the answers are, you're like, "Do you like the dead?"
No. "Did you vote for Bernie?" No. "Never?" Nope. Not in the primary in 2016. Not in 2020.
But anyway, little by little, I want to develop this questionnaire.
I like this idea.
Back to Jerry. Clearly, the '60s made a big impact on him.
And one thing I was thinking about afterwards is just like, again, not to beat a dead horse, but when he was going on about the '60s,
I was like, "I don't know what you're talking about, man."
'60s dead is such like a tiny part of like the whole story.
Sure.
I'll throw it on from time to time, like Alive Dead, the record, but like I'm just kind of like,
"Man, they really hit their stride in the '70s and like the '80s produced a lot of beloved songs too.
Then you got Spring '90 and the final years.
Like, you're the one stuck in the '60s because you associate the dead so much with the '60s."
We'll have him back on. We'll hash it out.
Well, I mean, but they're like a, they're known as like a really psychedelic band that came out of San Francisco.
I mean, it's not that much of a stretch to associate them with the '60s.
I mean, if you're a true head, you know, like the bulk of their great stuff happened in the '70s,
but like just like a cursory glance at their sort of cultural imprint, you think '60s.
Like if there's like a time-life montage of the '60s, you're going to get like Kate Ashbery and San Francisco
and maybe like a shot of the dead playing in Golden Gate Park.
They're there. Absolutely. And that's the culture that they came out of, but they really hit their stride in the '70s.
Their most beloved studio albums, their best touring years.
I would actually say, and again, I just dug myself a grave because you know,
some people are going to be like, "These guys can't stop beating a dead horse."
But when I see a connection, I got to go for it.
I think it's a little bit like Seinfeld, the show. But Seinfeld, back me up on this.
Okay.
Grateful Dead, their early work came out in the late '60s, but then their first truly beloved studio album came out in 1970.
And then they were off to the races, bringing all sorts of new influences and changing culture through the '70s
and arguably becoming the dead that took over the world.
What decade did Seinfeld debut in?
Seinfeld debuted in the '80s, but didn't really pop off until the '90s.
Took about three, four seasons for it to really find its voice and its audience.
It is considered kind of like such a '90s show, but really you're like, Jerry's style, his hair.
The show started in the late '80s. It kind of came out of Jerry and Larry's life experience of being comedians in 1980s New York.
And I just think there's some resonance there.
And I think it's always funny when you get the tail end.
Somehow this relates to the concept of the tight eight,
where it's like you start your career at the tail end of a decade and you're a little bit, you're right on the cusp of like,
are you going to be associated with that one or the one to come?
And in the Grateful Dead case, they started in the late '60s.
It's like Nirvana put out their first record in '89, same year as Seinfeld.
Yeah, right. So two iconic '90s things.
Yeah.
But what's the mean, like what's the average of Grateful Dead?
If you took the year they started and the year they ended, where does that meet in the middle?
Maybe that's a better determination.
That's a great call, Seinfeld.
Well, roughly the...
'67 and '95, right?
Yeah. I mean, I think technically the Warlock started in like '65 or something.
But yeah, let's say the Grateful Dead were releasing records from '67 on Jerry Dies in '95.
So that's...
So that's 20 years.
So '81 would be the halfway point.
Yeah, so kind of like...
So the Dead peaked in '81.
Althea.
They're an '80s band.
Well, in some ways. I mean, Althea, I think that debuted live in '79.
But that song came out in the '80s, certainly a beloved song.
And then they had their touch of grey renaissance.
So anyway, this is us talking less about the Grateful Dead.
I told Althea I was feeling lost
Like you're in some direction
Althea told me about scrutiny
Her mind, back, might need protection
I told Althea that treachery
Was tearing me limb from limb
Althea told me, "Come, cool down, boy
Settle back, easy, gee"
You're listening to...
Time Crisis.
I gotta say, the response to the Jerry Salts interview was huge.
I got a lot of personal texts and DMs from people.
People seemed very moved by that interview, which was great.
Yeah, it really did get a big response.
And between that and Ed from Radiohead, it was a very stacked episode.
But Jerry Salts is an icon.
And I did enjoy his book. I finished it since the last time we talked.
And I think it's something I'll continue to go back to.
It's just good, simple advice for artists.
But I didn't know that it would strike a chord with so many people.
Well, Seinfeld, you were manning the Twitter.
So you were seeing this unfold in real time.
I was seeing it in real time.
And I think people didn't see it coming, the profundity of it.
And I think it was a rare example of some old wisdom
that, frankly, we don't really have that often on the show.
I mean, a friend of the show, Larry David,
but he was kind of taking a more comedic bent.
This was like some real grown man talk that I think we don't often get.
Yeah, that's a great point.
At the beginning of Time of Crisis, Time Crisis,
we were talking about old wisdom.
Jake made the great old wisdom playlist.
But we haven't made much of an effort outside of Jerry Saltz
to get more people 60 plus.
Maybe we need some 70 plus, some 80 plus.
I think we should get more old wisdom for everybody sitting at home.
Because I think there's probably a lot of TC heads.
Maybe they're a college student, couldn't go home for some reason.
They're renting in some funky house off campus, just alone.
They're not getting any old wisdom,
not from their family and not from their old professors either.
So we need more old wisdom on the program.
Nick, didn't the interview with Saltz inspire you to start drawing?
Oh yeah. I'm drawing a drawing a day, at least.
That's amazing.
When he said we just need bad art, like that just...
You're like, "Can do."
I was texting you guys while it was happening.
In real time, I was like, "This is so inspiring."
Just to have someone say, "Make something."
It doesn't matter if it's good or bad.
He kept saying, "Draw pictures of your Nona."
I felt like anything he was saying in that moment was just cutting through.
Are you finding that drawing is changing your perception slightly?
Yeah. I think that just doing that and making it routine,
it's grounded me a bunch and given me some sense of,
"I got my work, but it's definitely calming me down."
And then, yeah, a definite sense of perspective in the artistic way too.
It's like I'm drawing pictures of my friends.
So I'm looking at pictures of people I know.
Basically, I'm just drawing pictures of people I FaceTime with.
Can you draw us and then we can use it on Twitter as the promo for this show?
Yeah. I'll do--
There's a lot of information going on on this FaceTime.
There's five of us.
You need a cool picture.
It's a big bite of the apple. I'll send you guys some stuff I'm doing.
But yeah, you know what? That's my thing for tomorrow.
I'm going to draw this FaceTime.
But I do-- I highly recommend you listen to Daddy Saul's
and you just do something creative that's outside--
I'm not an artist. I'm not Jake.
I drew a little bit before, but I will say even doing something that you know--
It's a little embarrassing, right?
You're not used to doing it.
It's not like all of us that do something that we feel that we do pretty well.
That's what's interesting about Jerry Sauls.
And it's true of a lot of teachers.
It makes me think of a kung fu movie or something
where he's very encouraging of people just to get to work.
Go do it. It might not be good.
And I think sometimes there's--
You have a brand-- This is not Jerry Sauls at all,
but you have this brand of Instagram hustle culture fake guru dudes
who are just like, "Bro, get to work. Start grinding."
Once that happens, you're going to see great things happening.
And the Jerry Sauls of the world, especially when you read his book
and you look at the way he talks, he's interesting.
Because on the one hand, he's very encouraging.
"Get to work. Come on. It doesn't matter if it's bad."
But he's also an art critic with hardcore opinions
who thinks a lot of shit is terrible.
And so I like that duality where it's like,
"Get to work, you big babies. Start making stuff. Make bad art."
You're like, "All right, cool."
If you hear it one way, you could hear it through the lens of
an encouraging teacher who's like, "There's no such thing as bad art."
But Jerry Sauls is not saying there's no such thing as bad art.
He's just saying, "Just get to work. See what happens."
And that's why I like that he's got the softness and the harshness.
And in some ways, that's what a teacher or a guru or an inspiration does
is get you hyped up but also prepare you for the world.
And the world is complicated like that.
You need that inspiration just to get going.
But also, you're always getting knocked around.
That's what the creative process is.
You have to get going just to start,
but you also have to be getting knocked down.
So when he says make bad art, I've been thinking about that a lot.
Sometimes the fear of making bad art stops people from doing anything.
And you have to just get in there and you got to get used to
being knocked around a little bit because he's not exactly a kind vibe dude.
He's not somebody who's like, "Art is important. I love everything."
He very quite literally doesn't.
Yeah, it's interesting because there is a conflict a little bit
because he's sort of like every single person is creative.
Every single bone in every person is creative.
But he's also acknowledging that most stuff is not good.
So he's like, sort of like, "Most people are bad artists."
But it doesn't really matter if it's bad.
I think his overall vibe is it doesn't matter if it's bad.
It's okay. Keep doing it. You might get good. You might not.
It's the journey, not the destination, all of that.
So yeah, he's a funny...
To him, the artistic journey is about improvement.
Exactly.
One thing that I thought I liked in his book too is that he says like,
you know, how to deal with criticism.
He's like, "Trust me. Everybody's had bad criticism."
And he gives examples of great artists who like sh*t on each other's work.
He's like, "Now we consider all these people masters, but they f*cking hated each other."
And Manet said that, you know, "Whoever sucked, whatever."
So he's kind of saying like, when you get bad criticism,
he's like, on the one hand, "Don't listen to that sh*t.
Don't let it get you down. You got to keep moving."
And also there might be something true about it.
So he's like, "They might be right. Maybe they're..."
And I like that duality because that's the kind of toolbox that you need.
Where it's like, get to work. Your work might be bad.
Acknowledge that it's bad. Keep working.
I also want to say there was a thing that I wrote down while you was talking.
This idea of radical vulnerability.
Most people, I mean, you guys, obviously as a painter and as a musician,
and Seinfeld, you as a professional social media man, putting out tweets.
You guys are used to putting out something creative that you spend time on
and having to deal with the reaction and being possibly embarrassed by it
and wondering. Most people don't have that experience.
So when you go and you just draw a picture,
and you're like, "Maybe I'll show this to somebody."
It is just putting yourself out there.
It positions you in a vulnerable place that I think is a really important and cool spot to be in.
Right. And also, I think he's asking people to stand in true vulnerability
because you definitely have a phenomenon,
which I'm sure at weaker moments in my life when I was younger, I participated in.
I've certainly seen it growing up, and I've certainly seen it on the internet.
Often, vulnerability will be praised in a positive review of art
from a fan, a critic, whoever.
People will be like, "This work is important because the artist was vulnerable."
They're brave.
So there's a part, and I've seen it happen.
I've thought about it a lot and wondered, "Have I done that at times?"
So I've seen it happen where people take that in, and they're like,
"All right, so you're supposed to be vulnerable.
Okay, well, I'm pretty vulnerable.
Let me just put myself out there," and then watch the rewards come in.
And the irony is that I think I had this kind of riff once
where I was saying a similar thing about artistic bravery and vulnerability.
There is this funny irony where it's like to be really vulnerable
is not to kind of write a song about something really weird that happened to you
and then watch the money and high-fives roll in.
To be really vulnerable and to be really brave is to make something awkward
and be unsure about it and then to show it to people or release it to the world
and have the world be unsure about it.
And some people will be like, "Yeah, this sucks."
That's actually true vulnerability, and there probably is--
there's a lesson in it.
And I think sometimes culturally it's hard to see that lesson
because we routinely see things called vulnerable and brave
that aren't really vulnerable and brave because there's no--
Generally, things that are universally lauded in a culture weren't that risky.
Somebody had a gut feeling that at that moment I can do this,
and it'll probably work out.
But today there's something that somebody makes that's being deeply misunderstood,
and that is the true bravery.
True vulnerability is different than just one form of vulnerability
that gets talked a lot about in the discourse.
Which would be like sad sack, maudlin, tug on the heartstrings kind of vulnerability.
Because his vibe is like whatever stupid idea you have
banging around in your head that keeps popping up, do that.
It's not that it's like, "Oh my god, I'm talking about this terrible thing I went through."
It's more of like, "Everyone's going to think this is so stupid,
but I keep thinking of it."
I guess that's the thing that I like to think about.
In the movie version, in the Hollywood version, somebody has an idea,
they think, "Nah, everybody's going to think it's stupid."
Then they finally put it out there, and there's a parade for them.
That's a version of risk and vulnerability that's very appealing
because it's really more just like believing in yourself or something.
Whereas sometimes when you have that feeling,
people are going to think it's so stupid, people aren't going to get it.
You're actually right, but the artistic journey still involves
allowing that to happen and moving forward,
because some people will get it, and then you keep on trucking.
I love to think about an alternate reality where Jackson Pollock
gets the idea to splatter paint all over this huge canvas.
Which, if you step back, is kind of a stupid idea.
I love the alternate reality where people are just like,
"Why'd you do that, man? That's dumb.
You just splattered paint on a canvas. I don't get it."
Nobody's feeling it.
I'm painting, I'm painting again, I'm cleaning, I'm cleaning my brain.
guitar solo
"Pretty soon now, I will be bitter. Pretty soon now, I will be explitter.
Pretty soon now, I will be bitter. Can't sleep until it's finished."
Well, in the spirit of not making everything about the same five classic rock bands,
although those are TC Touchstones and they'll continue to be,
I was thinking, with all these interviews and stuff,
we haven't just talked about some music in a while.
Yeah.
Of course, with the FaceTime, it hasn't been quite so easy.
We don't have our usual tools, but I thought,
"You know what? In this time of crisis,
people want to hear some songs they haven't heard before.
They want to revisit songs. Maybe we should just,
every episode, if we have time--
Do a deep dive?
Yeah, just bust out a song and get into it.
I love it.
Because time crisis, I don't think I need to tell people,
but sometimes I need to remind myself in a way,
is an internet radio show.
You know what we can do on time crisis that a lot of podcasts can't?
Play songs.
Anyway, I heard this song a few months ago,
and I made a mental note.
I was like, "Oh, man, I got to send this to Jake."
Then I forgot until quarantine,
and then it popped in my head a couple of weeks ago.
I wondered if you--
This is totally the type of song that either Jake would be like,
"Oh, dude, love that song."
Or you wouldn't know.
Anyway, it's called "Old Hippie" by the Bellamy Brothers.
Wait, so where did you hear it initially?
I think it might have just been on a playlist,
or I might have been listening to some kind of random shuffle mode radio feature.
Something kind of popped up.
So, Jake, are you aware of the Bellamy Brothers?
No.
I guess they're essentially a country act.
They seemed pretty big in the '70s and '80s.
I recognized when I was looking through the rest of their music,
besides their song "Old Hippie,"
I said, "Okay, they have this one big song."
♪ Let your love flow like a mountain stream ♪
I was like, "Oh, yeah, I totally remember that from Time Warner commercials
that are like the golden hits."
But this is one of those very topical country songs
with very specific lyrics that I kind of love.
Anyway, it's called "Old Hippie."
Why don't we get it cracking,
and maybe we'll listen to the first verse and talk about it.
♪
And this is mid-'80s?
Yeah, sound about right. I get a number crunch.
♪ He turned 35 last Sunday ♪
When I first heard this song, I was 35.
This came out in 1985.
Love it.
It's a man born in 1950.
♪ But he still ain't changed his lifestyle ♪
♪ He likes it better the old way ♪
♪
♪ So he grows a little garden ♪
♪ And the backyard by the fence ♪
♪ He's consuming what he's growing ♪
♪ Nowadays in self-defense ♪
♪ He gets out there in the twilight zone sometimes ♪
♪ When it just don't make no sense ♪
This is where you start to learn more about this guy.
♪ He gets off on country music ♪
♪ Calls disco left and cold ♪
♪
♪ He's got young friends and a new wave ♪
♪ But he's just too friggin' old ♪
[laughs]
Friggin'.
Too friggin' old for new wave.
♪ And he dreams at night of Woodstock ♪
♪ And the day John Lennon died ♪
♪ How the music made him happy ♪
♪ And the silence made him cry ♪
Oh, man.
♪ Yeah, he thinks of John sometimes ♪
♪ And he has to unwind ♪
This is like five years after Lennon died.
Pour one out.
♪ He's an old hippie ♪
♪ And he don't know what to do ♪
♪ Should he hang on to the old ♪
♪ Should he grab on to the new ♪
♪ He's an old hippie ♪
♪ This new life is just a fuss ♪
♪ He ain't trying to change nobody ♪
♪ He's just trying real hard to ♪
So that's the first verse and the first chorus.
I think I found this song pretty bizarre when I first heard it.
There was something about, often as is in the case of good songwriting,
and especially in country music,
I was kind of on the fence about the song.
But there is something moving about the end of the chorus.
You're like, "He's an old hippie" is funny,
but then, "He ain't trying to change nobody.
He's just trying real hard to adjust."
I was like, "That's a pretty good summation
of being the old hippie who's like,
'I was fired up like Seinfeld in my teens and 20s.
We were going to change the world, man.'"
And at this point, I'm not even trying to change anybody.
Just seeing if I can change myself enough to survive New Wave.
- Regan's America, dude. - Damn.
I love the first verse where he's talking about growing his own weed.
- Oh, interesting. - Pretty poetic.
You know what's funny? I didn't even think about him growing weed.
So he grows a little garden in the backyard by the--
Oh my God, of course he's talking about weed. Damn.
He's consuming what he's growing nowadays in self-defense.
He's out there in the Twilight Zone.
I'm embarrassed I didn't catch that.
I guess there's a part of me that's just like,
I'm so used to living in LA,
and even before I lived in New York,
it's like the era of everybody's got a little vegetable garden,
everybody's got a little vegetable box.
There's a community garden.
They have a few things planted.
And I was like, "Oh yeah, he's an old hippie."
He's a crunchy dude. He likes to grow his own vegetables.
But there was something about it where I was like,
"He's consuming what he's growing nowadays in self-defense."
And I was like, "Well, I guess he used to believe
the whole world might go organic,
but now he's just eating it so he doesn't have to eat a Big Mac."
That makes me like the song even more,
because now you're picturing this 35-year-old aimless dude,
and he's not even some cool weed dealer or something.
It's just real sad.
It's like maybe he's living at his parents' home or something,
and they're not even cool with him smoking weed.
And it's just like, "Back when I lived in Berkeley,
there was definitely no problem getting weed.
These days, I just got to grow my own little plant."
And just picturing this guy,
and he's consuming what he's growing nowadays in self-defense,
because that's also some real sh*t.
When sometimes you smoke weed to get high with your friends,
laugh your head off, have a vibey night,
throw on some tunes,
and then some people smoke weed just to get through the day.
Actually, a friend of the show, Mero,
has famously spoken on this,
because he smokes a lot of weed.
People think, "Oh, I'm such a stoner, ha ha ha."
And I'd be like, "Man, I smoke weed just to get through life."
It's not happy.
It's like, "I smoke weed half the time."
- Bake and bake. - Yeah.
"I smoke weed half the time just to get sh*t done."
Not because I'm checking out.
It's like a tool.
Now I've got this image of this dude
in a suburban backyard with his tiny little weed plant,
and he's just taking a little toke by himself,
and his 70-something parents are in the house,
and he's just getting high and just being like, "Oh, man."
I just turned 35, dude.
Damn.
35!
Also, very...
kind of an interesting sociocultural commentary on their part,
that he's an old hippie, so they talk about John Lennon,
he liked Woodstock-type music,
but they specifically say he gets off on country music
'cause disco left him cold.
I think there's still kind of versions of that dude,
the 35-year-old dude who's like,
"Yeah, I've been actually listening to a lot of
'Golden Age of Country' stuff.
Yeah, when I was in my 20s, you wouldn't have caught me
listening to country, but..."
Dude, I'm that guy.
It's basically, Jake gets off on country music
'cause EDM left him cold.
[laughs]
Oh, absolutely. I don't fully own that.
He's got young friends into trap music,
but he's just too friggin' old.
[laughs]
♪ He dreams at night of shows from the '90s ♪
Oh, GBV.
What's a Portland venue GBV would've played at in your day?
Burbati's Pan.
And he dreams at night of Burbati's Pan.
So this is somebody born in the '50s,
so they're 18 in 1968.
Perfect timing to enter adulthood
with all that stuff going on politically, musically.
And then this guy couldn't get down with disco,
which is a little whack.
Come on, Bee Gees have some great songs, man.
What's wrong with disco?
But anyway, he doesn't like where rock's heading,
so he's like, "I guess I'm in the country now."
Probably a lot of people like that.
You're talking to one.
You're just an old hippie.
Okay, let's hear verse two.
♪ He was sure back in the '60s ♪
♪ That everyone was hip ♪
Ooh, that harmonica.
♪ And they sent him off to Vietnam ♪
♪ On his senior trip ♪
So he's 18, going to Vietnam.
♪ And they forced him to become a man ♪
♪ While he was still a boy ♪
♪ And behind each wave of tragedy ♪
♪ He waited for the joy ♪
♪ Now this world may change around him ♪
♪ But he just can't change no more ♪
That's a beautiful verse.
Yeah.
That's deep.
♪ 'Cause he's an old hippie ♪
♪ And he don't know what to do ♪
♪ Should he hang on to the old ♪
♪ Should he grab on to the new ♪
♪ He's an old hippie ♪
♪ And his new life is just in bust ♪
♪ He ain't trying to change nobody ♪
♪ He's just trying real hard to adjust ♪
All right, so let's look at that verse.
He was sure back in the '60s that everyone was hip.
Then they sent him off to Vietnam on his senior trip.
He was kind of like a high school hippie.
Yeah.
'Cause I'm sure there's definitely the figure
of the kind of like straight-laced,
I believe in America,
kind of borderline right-wing dude
who goes to Vietnam and kind of comes back
as a, I guess, like Rambo-esque.
He didn't go to Vietnam as a hippie.
He came back from Vietnam disillusioned and hippie-ish.
Right.
But he's saying he thought everybody was hip.
Some picture him like he's a dude who's like,
"Man, it's the '60s, man. Everything's groovy.
"Acid's gonna open up everybody's minds.
"We're not gonna have money or cops by 1973
"based on my calculations, man."
So he's kind of like a little bit flower power.
And then Vietnam just like (beep) him up.
He still believes in the '60s,
but behind each wave of tragedy,
he waited for the joy.
Now this world may change around him,
but he just can't change no more.
That's some real (beep) is just being like,
"I'm out of gas, man.
"I was psyched on the hippie wave.
"I was like psyched on where it was heading.
"Vietnam kind of threw me off, but I came back
"and I was kind of like getting back
"into like a kind of vibe '70s thing.
"I'm done. I'm tapped out."
Yeah, an 18-year-old going to Vietnam.
I mean, that's heavy.
All right, so verse three.
♪ Well, he stays away in lockdown ♪
♪ From the parties and the clubs ♪
Doesn't party anymore.
♪ And he's thinking while he's jogging 'round ♪
♪ Sure is glad he quit the hard stuff ♪
So he's like running for exercise.
Getting into jogging.
♪ 'Cause him and his kind get more endangered every day ♪
♪ And pretty soon the species will just up and fade away ♪
♪ Like the smoke from that torpedo ♪
Ooh.
♪ Just up and fade away ♪
Repeating "just up and fade away."
♪ Yeah, he's an old hippie ♪
♪ And he don't know what to do ♪
♪ Hang on to the old ♪
♪ Grab on to the new ♪
♪ He's an old hippie ♪
♪ This new life is just a bust ♪
♪ He ain't trying to change nobody ♪
♪ He's just trying real hard to adjust ♪
It'd be easy to write a novelty song about old hippies.
But they really, it's a very sympathetic portrait.
Yeah.
And very nuanced.
I wonder if it's, if these guys are,
like are they singing about themselves?
I don't know anything about the Bellamy brothers.
Maybe they had friends or they themselves.
You know, I just kind of assumed, maybe it's my bias.
I was just kind of like, well, these are real country dudes.
So maybe they kind of looked at the hippies with like, just sympathy.
Like maybe these guys are kind of like,
"Well, hell man, I'm glad you like country music now,
but you really went through it, didn't you?"
Because yeah, I agree.
Especially because there's that strain of country music
that's like anti-hippie.
Right.
You know, famously people interpreted Merle Haggard,
some of his hits, what like, what's his famous song?
"Okie from Muskogee."
That was interpreted, I think he went on record being like,
"That's not an anti-hippie song."
I'm still not clear on the original intent of that song.
If that was ironic or not.
You know, I've heard stories that like,
that like Grant Parsons had approached him
to try to produce his first record.
And like, he took one look at like long haired hipster Grant Parsons
and was like, "Not interested."
Guys, in 2020, so right now.
Yeah, Bellamy's.
The Bellamy's have opened up a cannabis...
A dispensary?
A dispensary.
A cannabis product called Old Hippie Stash.
Oh, hell yeah.
Although, yeah, I want to talk to the Bellamy brothers
if we can track them down.
Because now that weed is, you know, thankfully,
way less criminalized around the country,
legal in many places.
You do find all sorts of people like Toby Keith
kind of rebranded as like a weed dude.
Toby Keith who famously gave the Dixie Chicks so much sh*t
for like making the pretty obvious case
that the war in Iraq was f*cked up
and Bush was a bad man for it.
And Toby Keith went so hard at them
and he wrote his kind of like corny patriot, you know, songs.
"Will I proudly stand up?"
And I feel like then you have one that says,
"We'll put a boot in your ass."
It's the American way.
We should do a Toby Keith deep dive at some point.
Because what I remember hearing, this is in the early 2000s,
was everybody's like, "Toby Keith emerged as the f*ck you Dixie Chicks,
ride or die for America.
Let's put our boots in some like Iraqi asses."
Like that was his vibe.
And then I remember it was this kind of like bombshell uncovering
when somebody found out that he was a registered Democrat.
God.
This is just a vague memory I have,
but I remember my takeaway being like,
"Oh, so this is like a dude who probably is not even that right wing
and probably was just kind of like saw an opportunity
to like turn the Dixie Chicks into villains
and kind of own that space."
So I remember when I happened to catch one of his like weed videos,
like 15 years later, I was just kind of like,
"He's like a Trump-esque opportunist."
Yeah.
But anyway, so I wonder if with the Bellamy brothers,
they always were kind of like stoner hippie dudes
or it was like later on they were like,
"Well, remember that song we had that we..."
Because like maybe they interpret the song totally differently.
For us, it's like, it's a sweet, kind portrait,
which I think it is.
But it's also possible that for them, they're just like,
"Man, can you believe that really legalizing weed
all over the country, man?"
And he's like, "Damn, I want some of that."
"Well, remember that song we wrote in the '80s, 'Old Hippie,'
just mercilessly mocking those losers?"
And we have made a pretty penny in royalties from that song.
I kind of doubt it.
But yeah, I think actually, Jake, you uncovered it.
The image of the old hippie in the backyard
growing his own little secret stash
just to get high enough to make it through the mid-'80s,
that's what makes him a kind of tragic figure
that you can't help have love for.
So then in that third verse,
when they're talking about him jogging,
it's not that Huey Lewis, Don Henley kind of bitter take
where it's kind of like,
"Man, he used to be f***ing rolling around naked in Woodstock.
Now you're waking up at 6 a.m. to jog before your job?"
When I picture this dude, I picture this out-of-weight dude
jogging at 2 p.m. around his parents' neighborhood
just to get out of the house.
You know what I mean?
"I gotta get the blood flowing.
I gotta break a sweat or something today."
Did you guys know that in 2010,
the brothers released a song called "Jalapenos"
about the problems of political correctness,
but it was banned from radio because it was too profane?
Really?
Oh, damn.
Yeah, and then it became a major YouTube hit
with almost 3 million views.
"Jalapenos"?
Let's hear a little bit of "Jalapenos."
[cheers and applause]
♪ ♪
Okay, listen up.
We're gonna tell you just how screwed up everything is.
♪ Well, I loaded up my pickup truck this morning ♪
♪ going out to chase down them dollars and them cents. ♪
♪ No, I ain't busting my hump to feed my family. ♪
♪ I'm buying health care for illegal immigrants. ♪
[laughter]
Oh, my God.
♪ Life ain't nothing like a bowl of cherries. ♪
♪ There's too little laughter and too much sorrow. ♪
♪ It's more like a jar of jalapenos. ♪
♪ 'Cause what you do and say today ♪
♪ don't go away and stay. ♪
♪ It'll just come back and burn your ass tomorrow. ♪
All right, I get the picture.
Interesting.
This video is insane.
This is the Obama era?
2010, yes.
They have a guy wearing, like, an Obama mask.
Oh, God.
They were fired up about the Affordable Care Act.
Obviously, this is an ongoing issue.
Even in California, Governor Newsom
was announcing a fund to help out
"illegal immigrants."
And, you know, exact same thing.
They were like, "Our tax dollars are going to help these people."
And it's like, first of all,
a lot of immigrants who don't have, like,
official resident status,
they still pay taxes, and they pay into Social Security.
And, of course, they're doing work
that everybody benefits from.
So, it's a pretty classic right-wing tactic
of being like, "These freeloaders come into this country, man,
and you're paying for them."
And it's like, "No, dude, they're keeping your s--t cheap,
you goofball."
Yeah, so it sounds like after the sympathetic portrait
of the old hippie in the mid-'80s,
smash-cut 25 years later,
they're on the Trump train before Trump's even a candidate.
Maybe their vibe--and, listen,
I don't know if it'd be too controversial.
I'm still down to have the Bellamy Brothers on the show.
Absolutely.
We'll hold their feet to the fire, though.
You know, on TC, we ask the hard questions.
But, yeah, maybe they've been, like,
ragging on hippies for 20 years,
and, like, one day--
What are the Bellamy Brothers' first names?
Seinfeld, Guy Good, Number Crunch?
David and Milton.
David--no, David--
I'm sorry, David and Homer.
--and Homer Howard.
David and Homer, yeah.
They're from Darby, Florida.
It's like, "Hey, David, yeah, Homer?
We've been ragging on hippies for about 20 years.
Oh, man, I f--king hate men."
But it's like, "Well, you know what, Homer?
It's 1985.
We got Reagan in the White House,
and clearly the hippie movement has failed."
"Well, I see what you're saying, man."
It's like, "You know, call me crazy.
I'm starting to feel bad for those losers."
You know?
Maybe there's a song in there.
Why don't we write, like,
a very nuanced portrait of one of them fellas?
Yeah, maybe they couldn't have done that in 1968.
They were just, like, so pissed at the hippies.
By '85, they're like,
"The hippies are clearly villains,
but I think we can humanize them a bit
now that they're on the ropes."
You know, 'cause there was one line
that stood out to me in the song,
in the final verse,
"'Cause him and his kind get more endangered every day,
and pretty soon the species will just up and fade away.'"
I'm sorry, here comes a Grateful Dead reference.
Turns out the hippie movement
might have been a little bit on the ropes in 1985,
but it did not fade away.
-Ooh! -Fadum-tsh.
-Because actually-- -And in fact, we will get by.
We will get by.
Yeah, so think about that, Bellamy's.
We've really been on a journey with these guys
in this song, "Exploder."
But two years after this,
when they're just like,
"Man, look at these old losers.
Their whole species is about to fade away,"
you got the Grateful Dead have the biggest success ever,
reigniting--
of course, they were still big through the early '80s.
'85, that was like a dark period, right?
-Especially for Jerry. -That's a real ebb.
'85, '86.
But they were about to come back
and become the biggest touring band in America,
bringing a whole new generation,
in fact, offering, you know, some hope
to the old hippies that they actually will get by.
So the Bellamy's were looking down.
It's like in a movie,
the villain's standing over the hero,
seems just about dead,
bleeding bullet wounds,
got the gun cocked.
It's like, "Your species is about to fade away, man."
And you're just like, "Oh, s--t. What can they do?"
Boom!
First studio album in seven years, "In the Dark."
Take that, Bellamy's.
We gotta talk to these guys,
'cause I really think this was done
from the place of love, this song.
It's too good.
Old hippie, Bellamy Brothers.
Fascinating song.
So we've talked a bit on the show
about the COVID era brand Twitter champion,
which seems to be Stake 'Em.
And so we talked a little bit
about some of these Stake 'Em threads,
and we've been getting sent Stake 'Em threads
for at least, I think, three years.
Does that sound right?
2017, about when they came on the scene.
Yeah.
There's something about some of their tweet storms
in the COVID era have really elevated them
for better and for worse,
because you got a lot of people talking about Stake 'Em.
Even just, you know,
I did a pretty unusually high degree of preparation
for this episode.
I spent about five minutes just searching Stake 'Em
just to see what the streets were saying.
And when I searched Stake 'Em,
and I looked at the news--
On Twitter?
No, I again used Google.
But this time, I didn't click over to images,
'cause I wasn't that int--
I know what Stake 'Em look like.
I was interested in the top stories.
And just think, in the past 48 hours,
these are two of the top stories that come up
when you search Stake 'Em.
One is from Tech Dirt,
and it says, "How Stake 'Em became
the tweeting voice of reason in a pandemic."
So they're giving them, like, props.
Like, you know,
that's exactly what I imagined Stake 'Em was hoping for.
Just like, people being like, "Hey, guys,
I know it's funny,
but Stake 'Em is really speaking some truth right now,
and everybody should follow them."
And then right next to that,
you have a publication called Spectator USA
that published a piece called Burn in Hell, Stake 'Em.
- Anti-Stake 'Ems.
- Without even getting into the article,
the subheading is,
"Surely they are the last brand
from whom to take lectures about health and compassion."
So, you know, right there.
And even when I looked at Twitter a little bit,
I definitely saw some people
rolling their eyes at Stake 'Em.
But anyway, you know,
Stake 'Em's been making waves
in the brand Twitter world for a few years now,
so I imagine they got something to say.
So we're about to get on the phone
with the person behind the tweets,
his name's Nathan Alibach,
and he's running that account.
So we're going to kind of find out what his deal is
and kind of get in the mix,
because this is a very hot interview.
He's very in demand right now.
So let's get Nathan on the phone.
- Now, let's go to the Time Crisis hotline.
[phone ringing]
- Hey, Nathan.
- Hey.
- Hey, how are you doing?
Welcome to Time Crisis.
- Yeah, it's happy to be here.
- We're very happy to have you.
I'm sure you're getting a lot of requests lately.
The first question, what is your job?
- Social media manager.
- For?
- Technically, it's for our family agency,
Alibach Communications, but representing Stake 'Em.
- Okay, so family agency,
does that mean that your whole family
is in the advertising business?
- It's just my mom and my dad.
My dad started it, like,
right around the time I was born.
It's a pretty small agency.
It's only, like, under 20 people right now.
So it's just, like, a suburban local thing
that my parents are involved in.
- That's interesting.
I didn't know that there were that many
kind of, like, smaller suburban advertising agencies,
just 'cause, like, in so many fields
related to communications,
you've had these gigantic companies
gobble everything up.
- There's really not many.
- So it's pretty unusual to have that.
So what kind of clients
does Alibach Communications have, generally?
- It's actually pretty much all clients
just like Stake 'Em.
We've had, like, I don't know if you're familiar
with Utz Snacks, like, the chip brand.
- Right, wait, so you guys are Pennsylvania-based?
- Yeah, right outside Philly.
- I grew up in Jersey,
so I feel somewhat familiar with the Pennsylvania,
'cause Utz is a Pennsylvania brand, right?
- Yep.
- You guys work with Yingling?
- No, we actually pitched their business.
Literally, the, uh--
So I started working for their company in 2014,
and it's, like, a long, boring story,
but basically, like, my parents were like,
"Hey, you should just at least try the business,"
'cause I never really wanted to work in advertising.
So they offered me, like, a part-time internship
while I was doing other work,
and it was right around the time
they started pitching to get Yingling's business,
and it didn't come through, unfortunately.
But, uh, no, they've worked with other brands.
Like, we work with Mrs. T's Pierogis.
It's, like, another frozen comfort food type brand.
So it's mostly food and beverage brands
that are, like, what we consider
quote-unquote "legacy brands,"
like, old brands that are kind of, like,
dead in today's market that we try to, like, revitalize.
- And they tend to be relatively local,
like, Pennsylvania area. - Yeah, yeah.
Like, tri-state area. Yeah.
I mean, sometimes we get brands that are, like, out of state.
I mean, it's just--
that's probably the exception to the rule, I'd say.
- When you say "tri-state,"
which states are we referring to?
- I mean, like, New York, Jersey, um, Delaware.
Just, like, really anything,
like, right around Pennsylvania.
- On this show, "tri-state" has a very specific meaning,
which is New York, New Jersey, Connecticut.
I'm from Connecticut, Ezra's from Jersey.
It's the classic, like, tri-state area.
So it's interesting to hear, as a Pennsylvania guy,
dropping your own tri-state.
- Yeah, I mean, I just always heard it referred to that way
on the news growing up,
so I guess I just picked up on it.
Maybe it's not, like, the official terminology.
- No, no, I think you're right.
There's a lot of tri-state areas,
and I think it's-- - Yeah.
- It's partially why Jersey is kind of a powerful state,
is we get to double dip.
Jersey is a part of multiple tri-state areas.
Even though Jersey has no gigantic city,
Jersey is in between the Philly metro area
and the New York metro area, so yeah,
the PA tri-state area--
well, depending what part of Pennsylvania you're from,
wouldn't really include Connecticut.
They don't share a border,
but it will definitely include New Jersey.
So you grew up around this family business,
local Pennsylvania advertising communications agency.
Based on what you're saying,
it sounds like you were never particularly planning
on joining the family business.
Until what age?
- So, basically until I had a mental breakdown
and just lost my job and a bunch of opportunity
and stuff I had been going through at the time.
I mean, growing up, as a teenager,
I was just, like, the classic white, suburban,
like, middle-class kid
who was, like, rebelling against the family,
like, without a cause, you know?
Like, I didn't really have any reason to rebel.
I just, like, for some reason--
I think in part because I grew up going--
like, I was really involved in our local music scene.
It was kind of like a post-hardcore,
metal-ish music scene.
And a bunch of my friends are in bands,
and I got into songwriting through that.
Like, that whole scene of people
was just always very anti-power in some vague sense.
It was never, like, political,
at least not that I remember.
It was just kind of like, fight the system.
And I always felt like the advertising industry
was that system.
So I never, like, hated my dad for his work, per se.
It was never, like, a personal thing.
I knew he loved his work, and he was great at it.
But I just never saw it as something
I really wanted to get into.
- No, yeah, of course.
I think on paper, those things seem diametrically opposed.
But you're actually not the first person
with roots in punk rock
who got into advertising,
who's been on this show before.
- Oh, yeah?
- And people who listened to our Chicago episode
might remember having a conversation before.
But, yeah, that makes total sense.
Like, advertising is--
I mean, you tell me if this makes sense.
But, you know, when I think of punk and hardcore,
it's about, like, cutting through the bullsh--
and speaking the truth.
And, of course, what's the stereotype of advertising?
It's literally the opposite.
- It's the lie.
So you were interested in music.
What kind of work were you doing
before everything changed?
Was it something you were passionate about?
- No, oh, my God, no.
I was, uh--I mean, I jumped from, like,
random local jobs.
I was a landscaper for a while.
I had worked for a reality company.
And, I mean, I was always doing music on the side.
Like, that was my dream from, like,
the time I was, I don't know, like, 16 till 22.
Maybe a little before I was 16.
But, like, tangibly, like,
as I got into my late teens,
I was like, "Oh, I could, like, really do this.
This is, like, really what I want to do."
- So you, like, always had bands?
- Yeah, I was always either in a band
or I was always writing my own music.
And, you know, I sucked as a kid.
I was never, like, a natural prodigy
or anything like that.
But I got better over time.
Like, the last album I put out,
I was, like, really proud of it.
I was like, "This is, like, you know,
actually something I would listen to."
- Was that still in the kind of
post-hardcore, heavy thing?
- No, no, this was all, like,
folk, like, indie rock type of stuff.
- Oh, okay, all right.
- This was kind of, like--
- What were the band names?
- It was just always--
It was around my name.
- Okay, cool.
- It was--the first one was--
it was called Earl and Rain,
just my middle name and the middle name
of this girl that I was singing with at the time.
And it just kind of, like, evolved from there
until I just used my full name
because it was just easier that way.
But, yeah, no, so I was always doing that
with, like, the goal.
And then eventually I hit a wall
where actually, ironically,
I met my now wife and realized, like,
I had been putting so much time in my life
into music, thinking, like,
"I'm gonna make it."
But it was really just eating up my wallet
at, like, every opportunity to record
and end up having to haul my stuff to gigs.
So that was actually the moment,
as soon as I knew I wanted to marry her,
I was like, "I literally have to
put this on the back burner
and put all of my creative energy
into something that's gonna make me money."
- Right.
- So that's, like, actually, like,
the exact timing of when this all happened.
It was kind of, like, a weird crossroads.
- ♪ Now I know I ♪
♪ Have been so anxious ♪
♪ 'Cause whenever you're around ♪
♪ I can't trust myself ♪
♪ With all the windows in my house open ♪
♪ So I don't wanna be alone with you ♪
♪ No, I don't wanna be alone with you ♪
♪ It's taking all I have ♪
♪ To keep you out of my head ♪
♪ I don't wanna be alone with you ♪
- So when you first started working
at the family agency,
you were, I guess, thankful for the job,
'cause you're saying you were
shifting your priorities to, like,
having something steady and making some money,
but you weren't exactly psyched about it?
Is that the vibe?
- No, I didn't fit in whatsoever.
I mean, I joined in 2014 as, like,
an unpaid intern just to, like,
see what it was like, and because it is,
like I said, it's a small-town, suburban agency,
so it's not like what people picture
with Mad Men, you know, like,
New York City, hustle and bustle.
People, like, out-competing each other
for their jobs every other week.
The people that have worked with my parents' agency
have been with them for, like, 10, 15, 20 years.
- Yeah. - So I was the youngest person
when I came in, and it just so happened
to be around the time that, like,
brands on social media were getting, like,
more active, and I was like,
"Oh, I understand social media,
'cause I've been promoting my music on it
for years now.
Like, let me kind of mess around with this stuff."
And I never really got into it.
I mean, like, that was my work for years then.
It just kind of evolved into a position,
'cause no one there was into social media.
- So did you immediately start with Stake 'Em?
- No. So I started in 2014.
I was working on brands like Utz
and Entenmann's Little Bites,
and there was a few other, like, regionally-based brands
I was working on, and it was pretty just mundane.
I mean, at the time, social media was super boring.
This was, like, before Amy Brown came in with Wendy's
and, like, did the roast, heard around the world,
and that kind of blew up what people--
like, what marketers thought of
when they thought of brands on social media.
There was only a few like that before this.
So at the time, it was just, like,
brands would come to us and be like,
"Hey, we want to post on these holidays.
You know, we have this promotion coming up."
So we basically just put together
a content calendar every month, like, in advance,
and sent it over to them, and that was it.
Like, there was no real-time interactions
or trying to follow cultural trends.
It was just like, "Let's plan a month out
and schedule these posts for each day."
And that was my job until Stake 'Em, which was 2017.
So literally by the time Stake 'Em,
the opportunity came around, I was literally
either on the brink of getting fired,
which I've had conversations with my parents about since,
or being like-- or just quitting.
'Cause I just didn't know what I was doing with my life,
and I didn't enjoy the work. It wasn't really
- something I was into. - Well, how come--
Even in 2016, before you got the Stake 'Em account,
that was already the era of the--
you know, the Amy Brown era.
Was it just like a non-starter with us to be like,
"Can I start-- can I start telling haters
to go f--- themselves?"
[laughter]
- Were you like-- - Dude.
No, yeah, it's like-- I mean, I can't--
I've never worked in the high, upper echelons
of the corporate world as far as the Nikes
and the Amazons and the Coca-Colas or whatever.
But all the brands that I have worked with,
like that regional-- kind of like I said,
the legacy brand level of just older brands
trying to reinvent themselves.
It's just really hard convincing the people at the top
like this is a good thing that is worth the risk
of you jumping into. 'Cause it is like--
A lot of the bigger brands don't even mess with it
'cause it's like a huge risk assessment
to put somebody in charge or something like that,
which could be a potential PR nightmare.
So it was always something that we wanted to, obviously,
have more fun on social media, but it was a really,
really tough thing to pitch, which nowadays
it's obviously way easier 'cause there's way more
positive examples of it, but not back then.
By the time you're taking the account,
it's owned by like a gigantic company.
It was invented by the dude--
What's his name? Gene Gagliardi?
- Gagliardi. - Gagliardi. We wanna talk about him
in just a minute, but Gene doesn't own it anymore, right?
Yeah, no, it had--
Stakem had passed hands, I think,
three or four times since its founding,
so he sold it in the '80s or something like that.
Eventually, Heinz got it at one point,
and then Heinz sold it to another company.
- And now it's Quaker Made. - And now it's Quaker Made, yeah.
- Are they based in Pennsylvania? - It's based in Redding. Yeah, yeah.
Oh, okay. So Stakem's, even though it's owned
by a larger company now, it's still kind of in the family
wheelhouse of being a Pennsylvania-based brand.
How did things get started with Stakem's,
and how did you get the green light
to start getting these unusual tweets out?
[laughter]
So in 2017, we had run up our entire yearly budget
for our ads by, like, July or something like that.
And at the agency itself where I work,
it was just getting pretty slow.
We had a couple clients leave,
and we ended up just pitching to the client,
like, "Hey, we have this vacant Twitter account
that we hadn't used for anything except, like,
a couple promotions over the years."
So we were like, "Hey, what if we just logged in
and started messing around on it?"
It was a big trust-building process
because obviously we had the cornerstones
of what the brand was supposed to represent.
Stakem's a family-owned company, and Stakem,
it's kind of like a working-class product
that is all about people, but it's still a corporation.
There was all these lines we were trying to draw
to figure out what the voice was supposed to be like.
But day to day, they gave me the reins,
and I started messing around on it,
introducing the brand to random communities on Twitter
and just talking to people and making memes
and all the dumb stuff associated with brand Twitter.
And it eventually just snowballed.
And as it snowballed, the people over at Stakem,
we just had this relationship of trust
continue to build as the brand got more successful
and as they continued to see that we were being good stewards of it
and not just being totally reckless.
And so the people that you're mainly talking to
who are in charge of the Stakem brand,
obviously they were cool with the idea,
but were they just like, "That's random as hell?"
Or were they kind of like, "Okay, we're familiar
with the Wendy's stuff. We're relatively comfortable with this."
Or were they kind of like, "You're crazy, kid, but f*** it.
Stakem's Twitter account isn't really popping,
so give it a shot. We don't give a s***."
I think it was probably both of those things.
I think they were relatively comfortable with it,
but also it had less than 1,000 followers,
and almost none of those followers were active.
So by the time I got on it, it was just like a wasteland.
So I think when we initially worked out the idea,
there was no expectation that this was ever going to become
the thing it is now, obviously,
especially because they weren't planning to put any budget behind it.
So it was just like a-- yeah, it was a combination of like,
"Hey, we trust you guys."
We had been working with them for about a year and a half or two
before that, so there was already a relationship there.
And then, yeah, they were kind of like, "Okay, well,
there's nothing going on on Twitter anyway, so go for it."
I think I know what it was, but what was the first kind of
Stakem Twitter moment that really made waves?
It was the Verify Stakem campaign.
At the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018,
it just kind of climaxed in the second week of January of 2018,
when we got verified.
And that became this big-- I think it was just a slow news day.
It became a big news story where the Associated Press picked it up
and they aggregated that.
Yeah, it was just like, I guess nothing bad is happening in the world
for once, so here's this random story.
And it got sent to the New York Times and a bunch of other
big publications picked it up.
So you started with the kind of slightly lighter fare of just like
a little silly, kind of just like, "Yeah, verify us, man."
Because then there was that first viral thread that was about
the kind of meta commentary about why do people want to interact
with brands on Twitter, and you talked about the kind of
plight of millennials and loneliness.
That was like phase two, kind of.
Yeah, that was about like a year later from all this.
It was September of 2018.
And it kind of built to that.
I mean, obviously, the people that follow the account for those
moments only catch them as they come up.
But in between, from the time we got verified in that January
to that September, we had been exploring with some of the meta commentary
just because the sort of spheres of people in weird Twitter
that we were operating in would commentate pretty frequently
about how either ethically compromised or just bizarre
the whole experience of the account was because I was very
personable on it.
So there was always like that kind of underlying factor of me
through the account, you know, trying to add commentary
about what was happening in real time.
And that just, that big thread that blew up just kind of culminated
in the viral sphere, I guess, where everybody was like,
"Oh my God, what is Stakem doing?"
So you didn't have to go to Stakem and be like, "I'm going to start
getting really philosophical here.
Are you guys ready for a true Borgesian moment?"
And they're just like, "Well, hold on.
We haven't talked with the rest of the Quaker mid team."
You had basically free reign.
Yeah, I had done threads before that one that were pretty similar
in nature, just like on various topics of polarization
and the disenfranchising of young people and all that.
Like I said, that thread was kind of the culmination of just a lot
of the things I've been talking about on the account the past year.
But yeah, the day that I put it up, I remember it was just like
a slow afternoon. I had a bunch of time.
I was like, "You know what?" I had these rough thoughts on a notepad.
I was like, "I'm just going to formulate these into a tweet."
And when I hit send, it started blowing up faster than I've ever seen
something blow up on the account.
I was like, "Oh God, what is happening?"
And it terrified me because I didn't put it through for approval
or anything like that. I just kind of put it into the ether.
And I had no idea if I was about to get fired or be praised
for something cool. So it was a pretty exhilarating, crazy time.
(rap music)
- One question I have for you, and I guess,
starting with that moment all the way
to the current threads about, you know,
also, I guess, that have to do with reality,
what one can and cannot believe.
And it's interesting learning more about your story
because we've talked to Amy Brown on the show,
one of the OGs of Brand Twitter.
You know, for her working for Wendy's,
you know, it's not the biggest company on earth,
but it's like a very big company,
and it's this like very iconic brand that everybody knows.
So I think if you're Amy Brown,
you can't help but recognize that
what you're doing is changing the voice of Wendy's
because it's a familiar voice.
We all grew up in Wendy's, right?
And you're having fun with it.
And then we've also talked to Mac from Pluckers.
I don't know if you know him, down in Texas.
- Yeah, I'm friends with both Amy and Mac, they're great.
- You guys all know each other.
It's crazy. - I love that.
- That's amazing. - Amy said it.
It's like the mafia. - It really is
like the mafia.
So with Mac, you kind of, Mac strikes, you know,
he's more this like wild man, Hunter S. Thompson,
former journalist who's just like,
(beep)
gun for hire, I'll take this rag tag.
But you're somewhere in between
because it's like a certain type of person,
maybe the people with more negative reactions,
when they see the Steakums tweets,
they're picturing, I feel like,
a giant corporate food company
hiring a slick advertising agency.
You know what I mean?
'Cause that's like-- - Yeah, mad men.
- Yeah, I think that's what a lot of people picture.
So I guess my question is like, for you,
does the fact that you're at the family business
with the local product that you're advertising
mean you kind of like meld with the account
in a way that like probably is not as easy
when somebody's doing social media for Wendy's or something?
By the time you're writing these kind of,
I don't wanna say personal,
but like as you give Steakums like a true voice,
like what's going through your head?
Is it just you kind of at a certain point?
Are you melding with it?
- No, that's a great question.
I mean, it is both, I guess you'd say.
I mean, obviously, they are my thoughts,
and I'm putting them out there,
but I'm not putting them out there as me
like in full transparency
because I'm still representing the brand.
So I kind of have to like filter my thoughts
through whatever semblance of like an axiom, I guess,
that I can develop as like the Steakum brand,
which as a company, like you alluded to it there,
I mean, obviously Steakum, just like any brand,
like its bottom line is its most important driving factor.
Like it just wants to self-preserve and to grow.
But on top of that, obviously,
there's like the sort of brand storytelling,
the propaganda layered on top of that that we use
and we see in all sorts of advertising.
So like I have to kind of use that storytelling
and then mold that to what I'm thinking.
And over the past couple of years,
like a big part of that has been this kind of
unifying message, this like underdog brand,
how can we insert ourselves
in these cultural conversations in a way that's,
trying to bring people together.
So, I mean, obviously like these thoughts are,
they come from my head.
I mean, so like they are authentic in that way,
but I have tons of thoughts on this stuff.
I mean, there's like, there's a million things obviously
that I can't and shouldn't say as the brand,
but I mean, I try to find the pieces or whatever
that fit into these cultural conversations
that at the time feel appropriate,
even though obviously there's plenty of people
who disagree with that.
And then I even disagree with that on a certain point,
but I'm working with the, like I said,
the sort of axiom of the company I'm representing.
I can't really operate under my own like ethical frameworks.
You know what I mean?
Like I'm having to think of this as Stake 'Em, you know?
- Right.
And have you, well, in your personal life,
are you somebody who tends to be politically engaged,
interested in philosophy and the, you know,
the things that kind of dovetail with the Stake 'Em's stuff?
- Yeah, it's like literally all I'm interested in.
(laughs)
It's like day to day.
I mean, that's my sports essentially.
So I mean, yeah, that's why that's inserted itself
the way it has into the brand voice,
because day to day, that's kind of like the subcultures
that I'm operating in online.
So I constantly thinking in that mode and experiencing,
you know, the tensions between various, you know,
political and just general ideologies
and how to navigate that.
'Cause I'm a pretty confrontational person.
Like I'm pretty outspoken with what I think,
but at the same time I can be a mediator.
So like I use the Stake 'Em account as like a place
to mediate, you know, and try to listen
to what people are saying.
And like I said, insert.
- Well, one question, when I saw some of the Stake 'Em stuff,
I was kind of like, I wasn't sure what to make of some
of it because on the one hand, of course, you know,
I think most people got to agree with what you were saying
about the way in which quote unquote facts can be cherry
picked to serve a political agenda.
But it's like, interesting, as I was reading it,
I was kind of like, I think you did a good job.
I'm sure Stake 'Em wouldn't be happy if you were like,
you know what, I want Stake 'Em's account to be
this particular political ideology.
They'd be like, okay, now you've gone too far.
You wrote it in a way where you were kind of making
a statement that kind of anybody could agree with.
But as I was reading it, I was kind of like,
I couldn't help but picture, I was like,
well, when somebody talks about like believing real facts,
it's interesting because on the one hand,
like some people might hear that and be like,
yes, thank you.
Because we have a president who lies,
from a liberal perspective.
And somebody else might be like, thank you,
because we got the New York Times who lies.
So it's like, as I was reading it,
I was kind of like going left and right.
I don't know if you feel comfortable,
but do you have a particular political ideology
as a sovereign citizen of the United States?
- Well, I guess I shouldn't get too deep into it
'cause I don't want people to like directly associate me
and be like, this is what the person represents
or whatever.
Because the past few years, I'd say I've identified
as like a social Democrat, I guess.
I mean, like I'm definitely to the left
of like centrist Democrats,
but I'm also not like a total leftist,
which a lot of like the spheres I run in,
that's like their driving ideology.
So I kind of, I mean--
- Relatively warm feelings towards Bernie?
- Oh yeah, totally.
- Not a hate.
- Yeah, no, absolutely not.
But it's just kind of weird because like I said,
operating as the stake in the account
and just like my day-to-day life.
I mean, I grew up in a really like rural
kind of like conservative Christian area.
Like there's churches on every corner of where I grew up.
So a lot of the people I'm like still friends with
or like have like family connections with,
I mean, they're pretty conservative politically.
And I've always thought they were great people growing up.
It's not like, like kind of stereotypical,
I guess, conservatives that you see in the news.
I mean, obviously we have plenty of just the views
that I disagree with them on.
But as I've gotten older,
I guess what I'm trying to say is like,
I've been forced in my personal life
to navigate the sort of like various political ideologies
in my own life.
So that's kind of translated online in a way
where I really, I try not to be an ideologue
in the sense where I'm like overtly pushing
a political agenda, even though I have personal views.
Like I just don't view that as like my role online.
Whereas some people are activists
and that's like their entire life and that's great.
Like obviously we need activists,
but that's never been like my calling, I think,
especially as somebody
who has to represent brands publicly.
Like I'm not, I don't want people to like follow my work
and be like, oh, well he has to have this slant,
you know, and that's gonna affect the way
he produces content or something like that, you know?
- Right.
Obviously if the goal of,
and certainly one of the major goals
of any social media manager is to get people talking,
you've succeeded at that with Flying Colors.
But one thing we talked about with Amy a little bit,
and that was, you know, she was on the front lines
of this early days, is that for her,
the Wendy's account would just get sent
like the gnarliest from the right and the left,
'cause she would get the hardcore vegans sending her,
you know, brutal pictures of, you know, slaughtered animals.
And then, you know, from the right wing,
just people just like, just, you know, real nasty trolls.
- Yeah, like 4chan type trolls.
- Yeah, racist type.
I don't think as far as I've seen,
Stakehams has generated that level,
but you know, certainly you have probably
every possible opinion about it
from people being like, thank you.
Like we were just saying that, you know,
when I'm searching Stakehams,
I'm seeing articles being like calling the account
the voice of reason in a troubled time,
and then somebody being really angry, saying burn in hell.
I hope I'm not ruining your day by telling you about that.
- I've seen it all, don't worry.
- Okay, all right, yeah, all right.
So I guess my question is like,
you seem like a thoughtful person.
What's it like taking all that information in?
Is it just like, it's just the job, forget about it?
Or is it emotional?
Does it get you thinking?
Like, what's it like?
- Oh, it's impossible not to get emotional about it.
I mean, I've talked to Amy extensively
about like her experience, like you mentioned,
just the trolls that she had to deal with on the account.
And for most of what she did, I mean, her name,
I think her name became public
as soon as the tweets went viral.
So she started getting personal attacks as well,
like right after the initial viral moment.
And it's been the same for me.
I mean, like my name has been attached to this
from the very first moment we have,
because obviously like, you know,
the people behind the account,
that's like the big question, you know,
as much as we wanna make it about the brand
from an advertising perspective, you know,
it's like every reporter is like,
well, who's behind this account?
So as soon as my name became attached to it,
I mean, there's just like this cohort of,
I'll say like specifically politically motivated ideologues
like in like the leftist sphere.
It's not obviously all leftists,
it's like a specific subculture.
Some people call it the dirtbag left
or the posting left.
So there's like a bunch of these accounts
who they have it out for me
and they've had it out for me for years,
but each time there's like a viral moment like this,
it just kind of gets more and more vitriolic.
Like you called me in like a crazy time to record this
because just a couple of days ago,
one of these accounts posted a fake rape accusation about me
like with my name and everything on the account.
And I had to like track this guy down
and like find his info and like call him
and be like, take this down.
And he'd like, eventually he took it down and apologized
and said like he had got hacked
and who knows like what the hell happened there.
But like a bunch of these accounts,
I mean, they send me death threats.
I mean, they're sending like just insane stuff,
like finding information about my family
and posting it everywhere.
Like it's just a very--
- And these are people that you assume are,
or they identify as being more left-wing, so.
- Yeah, yeah.
I don't assume it's all public.
- No, yeah, well, right.
But it's a bit ironic, although, you know,
life in modern America, late capitalism,
whatever you want to call it, is often ironic.
It's not like these like hardcore communists are just like,
we're outing the crypto fascist behind Stakehams.
Your political views,
you're probably not a billion miles away from these people.
Although we often talk on this show
about the narcissism of small difference,
where sometimes the closer you are, the further--
- Yep, I know.
- The more differences are magnified.
But when you, you know, I'll be honest,
we had this discussion too,
where we were just kind of talking about like,
well, yeah, is there just like the ceiling
for how much a brand Twitter can like speak the truth?
'Cause there's always just this ceiling of like,
yeah, but it's still a company.
And you do often reference that.
Is that just like that final thing
that as long as you're trying to sell frozen emulsified beef,
it's just like, they can never take any of the accounts,
commentary seriously because there's a profit motive.
And if so, are you understanding of that?
Or are you kind of like, eh, that's not really fair?
- No, absolutely.
I mean, like I honestly empathize
with a lot of the people that troll me.
And that's like been in part why I haven't like lashed out
the way I probably could have or should have
in a lot of these instances.
'Cause I try to think about, you know,
like why are these people like motivated to do this toward me?
And I totally get it.
A lot of them are following like the classic Chomsky model
of propaganda and they're not wrong in the sense where,
you know, my job as an advertiser is to blur the lines
between what a brand is and what a person is
and how to like obscure information in a way
that like gets people to feel something.
So like, obviously like no matter how meta I get with steak,
I'm like, no matter how many times I say
we're frozen beef sheets,
or, you know, talk about how we're a brand
with a bottom line, which I do all the time,
I can raise that awareness for people
and like get people to think about the fact
that they're being advertised to,
but it still has the same net effect of propaganda
where then that meta commentary becomes like
a deeper layer of connection where then people feel like
they're having a parasocial relationship with the brand.
I refer to it as like the next evolution
of brand connection in the sense where,
yeah, in the beginning, maybe it was like mascots, right?
Like fast food places had mascots to personify themselves
on commercials and everything like that.
And then there's obviously like this experiential aspect
of how brands try to get you to like feel
like you're part of an experience.
And so you don't think about what it is you're buying
or what you're participating in,
like Disney World or something like that.
And then you have influencers and people that do like,
even like shows like this,
like any kind of show where there's like advertising,
something to like get people to not think
about what it is they're buying,
but rather just like actually enjoy
how the information is coming to them,
whether it's from somebody they like
or just something that makes them feel good.
So no matter what I do,
I'm always gonna be obscuring that,
which is an ultimate net bad
in the view of a lot of these people.
And in my own view too,
the only difference is obviously I work in this industry.
So I have to like operate within it.
I guess I also just have more of a,
I don't know how you say it,
like it's more of like a contentious approach
where I view like these are the broader systems
we live under and they aren't stopping anytime soon.
Like me quitting my job
isn't stopping the system of advertising.
Like it's always gonna be evolving into the next thing
and on a global scale, not just like in the US.
So to me, it's like,
we're all part of the propaganda model
and I'm just one of its like leading
or worst perpetrators of it.
However you wanna come out looking at that.
♪ King of kings, thick blood all on my apron ♪
♪ Washin' people's face with a Mac ♪
♪ Smoke 'em like Steak 'ems ♪
♪ Yeah, my dynasty's Rolick for real ♪
♪ We hunt, eat, catch the rat ♪
♪ Blow his waist, float in the stream ♪
♪ You know we all pro with it ♪
♪ Anti-auto tune, boom ♪
♪ I flow fire, sit by the stove, hit it ♪
♪ Real news, official is listless ♪
♪ Gangsters and visitors ♪
♪ Step in the shoe, we all prisoners ♪
♪ Might take the hammer from you, know I'm an animal ♪
♪ Rock a spur fur hat, no nudes in sandals, boo ♪
♪ Everyday get money and dress rugged ♪
♪ These are the times ♪
♪ Keep a nine on you, blow up in public ♪
♪ And I will surely feed my new ♪
♪ The streets got the hottest things to get ♪
♪ And haters, they can eat me and preach ♪
♪ And while it go down, worldwide ♪
♪ It's the team, it's the theme ♪
♪ Me trade rounds, my money, niggas, it's me ♪
- Well, one last thing that I'd like to talk with you about,
you've been talking about how the Steak 'Em accounts
with some lefties, but we're curious,
do you have any interaction
with the aforementioned Gene Gagliardi?
We understand he's still alive.
We tried to track him down,
but all the numbers were, you know,
seemed to be disconnected.
Because from what we could see,
he had a Twitter account at some point.
He hasn't tweeted in a long time.
- His last tweet was in 2016,
and they were all unabashedly on the Trump train.
So we were wondering, yeah,
if there'd been any pushback from the Gagliardi family
towards the Steak 'Em's Twitter account.
'Cause, yeah, I mean-
- And they don't own Steak 'Em's anymore,
but you know, that often is contentious
with intellectual property,
is the family that started it wants to make sure
that it's being stewarded correctly.
- Yeah, no, I hate to say it,
but we don't have really any contact with him.
And we've thought about reaching out over some stuff,
like just to see what his take would be
on maybe some of the newer content,
like see what he thinks about a lot of it.
But he's really hard to get ahold of.
So no, we haven't had any luck.
- Interesting.
Well, we'll keep trying to get in touch with Gene,
and maybe we can broker a sit down,
maybe have a political debate.
(laughing)
- One other question.
Have sales increased the last few years?
- Yeah, so we had a sales spike
before we even had the Twitter account active.
So there was already growth there.
And then each year since we've had it,
so it's been like two and a half years,
there's been double digit increases,
almost always with bumps after these viral moments.
So there's definitely like a tangent.
- Wow.
I did see- - That's amazing.
- I did see in some of the replies,
I was looking through some of the recent threads
you've put up and I did see people being like,
"You know what?
"I normally don't buy staycums,
"but I'm gonna go and stock up today."
Like people were like,
you could see it in real time.
People literally being won over.
- Yeah, it's super weird.
- Thanks so much for taking the time, Nathan.
I hope you'll come back on the show in the future.
'Cause we're always interested in talking about people
actually working advertising.
Yeah, hope you and the rest of the family are staying safe.
- No, anytime man.
- In these, what is it?
Strange and uncertain times?
What's the cliche?
- Yeah, in these strange and uncertain times,
you need a Budweiser.
(laughing)
- Yeah, in these strange and uncertain times,
we hope the whole family agency
and QuakerMade, why not, is staying safe.
All right, have a good one, dude.
- Thanks guys, appreciate it.
- All right, bye.
- See ya.
- Well, Nathan, fascinating man.
I was very surprised, Jake,
to find out that it's a family agency.
That changed everything for me.
- Yeah, but it makes sense
'cause the voice of the Sagan's account is so singular
and it's hard to imagine a singular voice like that being,
or managing to persevere through a huge corporate structure
of like a massive advertising agency.
- Right, local agency, local brand, small and nimble.
- Makes sense.
- Makes a lot of sense.
- I mean, it's really, yeah,
it's like really the kind of a needle in the haystack
in the advertising world
that this guy works for his family,
who's run a small agency for decades with local clients.
It's like really everything lined up for this to happen.
- It does make more sense when you consider the voice.
Next up, we're gonna get on the phone with Brian Jones,
Vampire Weekend guitarist and Chet Hayes enthusiast.
If you don't remember Chet Hayes,
it's Tom Hanks' son who raps
and does a pretty good Jamaican patois.
So Brian's been posting videos
where he just kind of amazingly,
just like he goes side by side with Chet Hayes
and does his Jamaican patois,
but gets like the timing perfect.
- I'm so glad this is happening.
Those videos are like the funniest thing to me.
I don't know who said it, but it's like a solo.
It's like there's something musical about it.
- I was saying that.
It's like, is it like memorizing
the nuances of a guitar solo?
- Yeah.
So anyway, we're gonna check in with Brian, see what's up.
- Now let's go to the Time Crisis Hotline.
(phone ringing)
- Hello.
- Brian, welcome to Time Crisis.
- We were just wondering if like memorizing
the Chet Hayes videos was like kind of memorizing
like a solo, like a Steely Dan solo.
- I mean, there's a lot of similarities for sure.
A lot of nuance, a lot of timing.
- How do you memorize them?
You just study them?
- Yeah.
The first one I did in like a day
and then the second one was a little harder.
And then that one I spent like,
none of them were more than four takes.
- Okay.
So one question I have is Chet Hayes,
and I remember you actually telling me this
a couple months ago, long before his parents had COVID,
long before any of this crazy (beep)
and you told me that Chet Hayes,
he gets clowned on often by people,
sometimes for doing his Jamaican patois on the red carpet.
But you told me that you saw some commentary
where a decent number of Jamaicans were impressed
by his accent and his correct usage of vocabulary.
- Yeah.
I mean, that was kind of like a thing.
I can't remember all the channels I saw it on,
but you would see it and like,
people talking about it.
And I have one friend who's Jamaican,
who was like, yeah, that's like, that's it.
Like he has, I think he has an above average knowledge
of the vocabulary than most like regular white people.
- My question is that, you know, just like any dialect,
the grammar, the phrases, the words can be highly specific.
So was it hard to transcribe it
or is it all up on genius.com,
Chet Hayes red carpet speech?
- I must say, I think it was a bit of a pioneer
and you know, as far as like transcribing the texts
and the speeches, but I've been hearing a lot of that (beep)
my whole life sort of, and yeah, I don't know.
I just knew it.
- You didn't get stumped on anything.
- I think there was like one thing that I fully like,
or I didn't mess it up, but I like added an end to a word
that wasn't there that I just thought was there.
For the most part, it was kind of just, it was there.
You know?
- It really does have a lot in common
with transcribing music, like adding an end by accident.
You're like working hard to like figure out
the way somebody phrased some chords.
And you're like, I really think I got it.
Then finally somebody shows you how to do it.
And you're just like, oh my God,
that note's just not in there.
- Yeah.
- I don't know exactly if this is the timeline,
but you did post these videos right after you posted
yourself nailing a Steely Dan guitar solo.
- I will say this, this quarantine for me has been all about
you know, knowledge and learning things
and educating myself.
So I guess you can say those went right hand in hand.
- You consider yourself a millennial, right?
- I think I am considered a millennial.
- Not sure.
- I guess.
- You feel like I'm the fence.
- I think I'm in the time frame.
I'm 26.
That's, yeah.
- You're definitely not a silverback millennial,
but yeah, you're on the outer edge of it.
So we're curious about, yeah, for you during quarantine,
'cause we're all older and I've wondered like
your mid twenties quarantined,
what's that like for your generation?
Got roommates, normally people your age are out partying,
skateboarding, I don't know.
Do you feel like there's a different vibe
to be 26 in quarantine?
- There's probably, yeah,
there's probably slight differences,
but we're just kind of, you know,
I mean, I live with three other people.
It's maybe a little different,
but I mean, I'm inside all the time.
I like didn't even start going out like walking
until like three days ago,
'cause I was just like ultra paranoid for a while.
- Yeah, fair enough.
- I think that the one thing that will happen
in my generation, it's kind of started happening
that might be a slight difference,
is that I think once people feel like they don't have it,
they're kind of just like,
oh, I mean, I've been chilling for like two weeks by myself.
I don't have it.
Like, and my friend, my other friend right here
doesn't have it.
So like, let's hang out.
I think that's probably gonna start happening sooner
for my generation.
- And this person I'm talking to on Tinder
who lives three miles away,
they said they've been quarantined too, so let's party.
- I mean, I've heard and have had firsthand retellings
of things about like, a lot of people are, you know,
reaching horny levels that are crazy,
that are driving them to, you know,
and it's like, yeah, I went on a walk with somebody
and then on the hinge at the Silver Lake Reservoir.
And then, but you know, people are a little bit.
- People doing like six feet away mask walks
with people they meet on it.
- People doing six feet away mask walks.
And then people are like, you know, just telling each other,
it's like, yeah, I'm sure I don't have it.
And then, hanging out.
- I mean, it was bound to happen.
- Hell yeah.
- But you've been focusing on educating yourself,
Steely Dan solos, Chet Hayes monologues, anything else?
- I've been tie-dying a bunch.
And I was gonna do this thing for the 20th anniversary
of the "No Strings Attached" album,
where I was gonna try to put out like a cover EP of--
- Wait, just hold on, pause for one second.
Jake, do you know what album he's talking about?
- I was just racking my brain.
"No Strings Attached," it sounds very familiar.
- The 20th anniversary is when, Brian?
- The 20th anniversary was March 21st.
- March of 2000.
- Can I give you a hint?
- Yeah.
- It broke first week sales records.
- Is it rock?
- No.
- Is it hip hop?
- No.
Okay, I'll give you another hint.
- It's not rock, it's not hip hop.
- I'll give you another hint.
It's not nearly as cool as you might think it is.
- Think about in 2000, people just chomping at the bit,
a very passionate fan base.
MTV, everywhere.
- Oh, it's like a boy band.
- Yes.
- Okay, like Backstreet Boys or NSYNC.
- Which one? - The last, yes.
- NSYNC. - Yeah, NSYNC.
- Wow, oh, sorry, sorry.
Okay, so backing up,
you're gonna do a "No Strings Attached."
- Yeah, I'm pretty deep into it at this point,
to be completely honest.
- What are the big hits off that?
- I mean, "Bye Bye Bye," "It's Gonna Be Me."
- Okay. - Those are the two big ones.
Those are the two biggest NSYNC songs, I think.
But yeah, I've been working on that a bunch too.
I'm like eight songs deep,
and I have a bunch of friends
that are gonna record vocals for it.
It's gonna be great.
- You're gonna do the whole album?
- I was gonna do the whole album.
I think I'm gonna cap it at eight, though.
There's three songs that are great,
but I think I just wanna limit myself to eight songs.
But I mean, if we're doing this come like X date,
I'm probably just gonna figure out a way to include 'em,
'cause might as well.
- Wait, so the deep cuts on that NSYNC record are good?
- Dude, yes.
- Okay, wait, just, there's one song you have to check out.
- I would love to.
- That is legitimately incredible.
- Wow. - And it's like,
I don't remember exactly,
but I think it's one of the first songs
I ever sang together.
It's called "I Thought She Knew," and it's acapella.
I mean, I think it's crazily auto-tuned and layered,
but the arrangement is incredible.
Everyone's performance is really good.
It's just a great song in general,
and I think it's fantastic.
- I'm gonna check it out later.
- Yeah, Jake, are you down to listen to the whole album,
and then in a future episode,
check back in with Brian to discuss?
- Oh, absolutely.
- I can say with confidence that I think it's the best album
front to back of the boy band era.
- So you're familiar with like the full length records
of Backstreet Boys and NSYNC?
- Yes.
I'm hardcore NSYNC ride or die,
and I was, and I needed to make sure I educated myself
so I could speak with knowledge about why they're superior.
- Brian, what's your take on their followup, "Celebrity,"
where they got a little bit more experimental?
- I think "Celebrity" has some really fantastic moments
on it that were not appreciated by the crowd.
Some of the decision-making on that record was pretty crazy,
but not as many like string bangers as, you know,
their other two albums.
- Is it fair to say that "No Strings Attached"
was like their rumors and "Celebrity" was tusk?
- I would say that, but I will say that "Celebrity"
is their last album.
So it's, you know, there is like more weight to it.
- And it never got those future albums to contextualize it.
Like, yeah, if "Tusk" was their last album,
people probably wouldn't have revisited it
with the same kind of excitement.
Be like, "Yo, but in between 'Rumors'
and then the '80s hits, there's this like really cool album
that didn't do as well."
Like, it's kind of a different story
when it's like tucked in the middle.
- Yeah, exactly.
But I will say the thing that's cool about "Celebrity"
is that I think they were kind of given the reins a bit more
to like write and produce stuff.
And that's one thing that I think really gives
a little more weight in my opinion
and makes it more impressive.
- Yeah.
- Like JC was on some (beep) is all I have to say.
Like he's into, there's like some Beach Boys-y
like kind of Pet Sounds-y vibe stuff on there
that's pretty wild.
- It's also when JT started beatboxing.
- Yes.
- That side of him.
- The album version of the song "Top"
has like a 40 second beatbox break at the end.
- Crazy.
- Jake, you know what?
I'm gonna listen to "No Strings Attached" too.
And I think we should revisit this on a future ep
because boy band pop is actually a very
under examined genre for this show.
- I agree.
And I was doing, I was on the Peloton the other day
and I caught,
♪ It's tearing up my heart when I'm with you ♪
Is that NSYNC?
- Yeah.
- I was like, (beep) this sounds tight.
- Feels like the stars are really aligning
for a Jake NSYNC moment.
(laughing)
Guided by Voices, Grateful Dead, NSYNC.
- There's one track on "No Strings Attached"
that like kind of reminds me of
kind of like the Grateful Dead thing where,
this is a bit of a stretch, I'm sorry.
But they have one song called "Space Cowboy"
on "No Strings Attached."
- Wait, what?
- Whoa.
- Yes, exactly, exactly.
And this is obviously pre the Kacey Musgraves version.
And it's like way more literal,
like let's go to space, take a ride.
And it kind of reminds me of like one of those
like really trippy kind of like Grateful Dead,
or like, you know, like with like a Jerry Garcia's
solo album cut or something like that,
that just takes you, it's like,
oh, everything is about one other thing,
but then like we go to space on this track.
And it's like, I think it's kind of a similar thing,
in a way.
- From the Mars Hotel.
They made a whole album in some way
that's about a hotel on Mars.
I don't think they're gonna talk about it in the lyrics,
but kind of similar.
Proportionalize it compared to the Grateful Dead discography.
The NSYNC one song might be as weightful
as a whole Grateful Dead album.
- I wonder if there's a backstory to that.
The guys all dropped acid together for the first time
and went to Disney World.
- Wow.
- And they threw on Steve Miller's greatest hits
on the drive down.
- Some people call me the space cowboy.
- Yeah, or yeah, they're on Space Mountain.
It was originally called Space Mountain,
but then they wanted to make it a little cooler.
- All right, Brian, well, good to hear from you.
Let's get you back here soon,
'cause I feel like this is a rich vein of T.C. NSYNC.
- We've talked about NSYNC for hours,
so just let me know whenever.
- One of the world's foremost experts.
All right, dude, stay safe in these strange
and uncertain times.
- You too.
Good to hear all your voices.
- Yeah, good to see you.
- Yeah, you too, man.
Have a good one.
- See you.
- Stay safe, peace, y'all.
- All right, peace.
♪ Here it comes ♪
♪ We're in the end ♪
♪ And everybody's talking 'bout Jerusalem ♪
♪ Is this a beginning or beginning of the end ♪
♪ Well, I've got other thoughts, my friends ♪
♪ See, I got my eyes on the skies ♪
♪ The heavenly bodies of light ♪
♪ And if you're in the mood to take a ride ♪
♪ Then strap on a suit and get inside ♪
♪ If you wanna fly ♪
♪ Come and take a ride ♪
♪ Take a space ride with the cowboy bag ♪
♪ If you wanna fly ♪
♪ Come and take a ride ♪
♪ Take a space ride with the cowboy bag ♪
- Well, that was good to hear from Brian.
I've always been meaning to go deeper on NSYNC myself.
The last thing we'll say, 'cause this,
I don't think is worth bringing up too much later
before we get into the top five.
Nancy Pelosi talked to James Corden on her show.
We had a few TCNs tweeting this at us.
And I saw this already and it struck me.
He was basically asking her,
"What's keeping you sane during quarantine?"
And she basically opened her freezer
to say how much she loved ice cream and chocolate.
And she had a lot of ice cream from the brand Jenny's,
which is a great ice cream brand.
They have a few shops in LA.
It's originally from Ohio,
but it's a great artisanal ice cream brand.
But what was really interesting
was not just that she had a load of one brand of ice cream,
but was that in her kitchen,
she appeared to have two fridges.
And at first I was like,
"Wait, is one the fridge and one's the freezer?"
But then she opened a freezer drawer
and you're kind of like,
"No, I think it's just two distinct freezer/fridge combos."
And of course, we've talked at length on this show
about two fridge households,
but a two fridge kitchen, it's on another level.
- Which makes me think, yeah,
it was designed that way from the get-go.
- Oh, absolutely.
- It's like, "We're doing the renovation
on Nancy Pelosi's kitchen
at Pacific Heights in San Francisco.
Scrap what you have.
We need to actually make room with the floor plan
for two fridges, two identical massive fridges."
- The interior decorator's like,
"Nancy, I find this very gauche.
Can't we get you a nice chest freezer,
perhaps in the garage?"
And she's just like,
"No, I want two refrigerators in the kitchen
and I want two chest freezers in the garage."
- Nancy, this is over 200 cubic feet
of refrigeration in your house.
This is frankly excessive.
- She might as well just have on the old Batman
when he goes to see the penguin
and he would just live in a big cold room.
She could essentially just have a whole wing of the house
is ice world.
- Yeah, just a walk-in freezer.
- You know what would be tight is if,
although I'm sure COVID and the recession
will definitely puncture some of the foodie dreams
of the relatively more flush years,
but it would be tight if somebody was so into food,
but also kind of liked the different temperatures.
'Cause apparently it's good to go,
have you ever done it?
You steam and then you jump in an ice bath.
It's good for your heart and your skin.
- It's crazy, yeah.
- It would be tight.
You could kill a few birds with one stone
if somebody was like built a house where you're like,
it's a massive walk-in refrigerator/freezer
where you keep everything.
But also it's so big that it's not just like racks
and like hanging pigs and whatever you might find.
There's like furniture that's like made out of ice.
It's like Mr. Freeze in Batman and Robin.
So it's like, you're at Nancy Pelosi's $50 million mansion
in Pacific Heights and you enter that room to like,
you know, go grab some ice cream,
but you gotta like put on like a huge fur coat.
You know, Nancy Pelosi has like one of her kids
to get some ice cream and just like,
you could either bring it back into the living room
where everybody puts on a fur coat,
like the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
And you step into this frozen world
and you sit down at an ice table
and you eat the ice cream in there.
And then you're like, oh, I'm cold, let's go back.
Okay, and then you go run back to the living room
by the fire.
You know what actually would be really tight
is straight up if you're like into the Lion,
the Witch and the Wardrobe, you know,
maybe you have your kitchen and nearby,
there's some kind of like closet,
like where people hang their coats
when they enter the house.
It'd be cool if you kind of enter the kitchen
and you're just like, wait, there's no fridge in here.
And then somebody is like, oh no,
that's the door to the fridge.
And they open it and it's a bunch of fur coats hanging.
And you're like, no, oh, I guess I'm confused.
This seems like the coat closet.
And somebody is just like, throw on the fur coat
and take a few steps deeper.
And the next thing you know,
you're in a winter wonderland full of ice cream
and frozen peas and things of that nature.
Some people were saying that they thought,
I'm not saying she's a bad person,
but it's a little bit unfortunate
that one of the prominent Democrats,
Speaker of the House is so rich.
- Yeah. - And look,
everybody knew she was rich
before she showed her two refrigerators,
but she's like really rich.
- Yeah. - She and her husband
have a very wealthy household.
And you know, like,
I mean, if they're like, (beep) your fridges,
you could just be like, wow, weird,
strange.
(laughing)
- If she just had like two white ice boxes.
- Yeah. - She bought 'em at like 91.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Nancy Pelosi's like a weird hoarder,
stacks the newspapers.
There's something about having two like baller fridges
that's just like,
- Yeah. - it didn't even cross your mind
to not show the American people that.
- That's a red flag.
- Now it's become a non-zero possibility
that at some point Trump will be like,
people say, I'm out of touch.
I mean, listen, I got a taste for gold.
What can I say?
It's my favorite color, but trust me folks,
anybody who has two refrigerators in their kitchen,
that's somebody you can't trust.
That's a greedy person.
- Those fridges were gigantic folks.
(laughing)
They're huge.
- Please Mr. Biden, there's no room for error, man.
If Trump brings up the two fridges,
you need to have that pivot worked out
because he's gonna get the Democrats on this
and it's not gonna be pretty.
- If anyone from the Biden campaign's listening,
prep your candidate for the two fridge attack.
It's coming.
- Now listen folks, a two fridge household,
of course I understand,
chest freezer full of McRibs, who hasn't done that?
But two in the kitchen.
Well, now hold on Donald.
Actually I've been to Nancy's garage,
she doesn't have a chest freezer.
So it is in fact a two fridge household.
It's no different than Lonnie's dad.
Oh, she's no Lonnie's dad.
(laughing)
All right, let's get into the top five.
- It's time for the top five on iTunes.
- We were gonna do a comparison top five,
but with all our great guests and deep convos,
we're gonna go straight into the current hits of today,
which I think is good 'cause we haven't really talked
about modern music in a while.
NSYNC is the most modern music we've talked about
in a minute.
The number five song right now on the Apple music charts
is St. John Rose's "Imanbek" remix.
St. John is a Brooklyn, New York rapper.
Well, this song has a real journey.
- Yeah, it's like we're still in the intro.
The song came out in 2016, then again in 2018.
- And then, all right, then this remix was released
in September 13, 2019.
Okay, I think I've heard enough.
Well, I was kind of waiting for like the voice
to drop down and that kind of sounded like a DJ,
I guess 'cause it's a remix,
maybe I can't tell if it's pitched up
or somebody just has a really high voice.
I'm interested that this is up in the charts
because this really reminds me of something
that I would have heard blasting off the Radio One
in a Sprinter van in the UK
when Vampire Weekend first started touring there in 2008.
It really like takes me back.
Just picture me wearing a little preppy gray coat
and a plaid scarf freezing.
- Yeah.
- Deep winter in the UK, early Vampire Weekend days
and just like listening to UK radio
and just like hearing a song like that,
you're like, this is cool.
I guess I wouldn't hear this in the US,
but since 2008, the UK has really,
I think, been very influential actually.
Not that this is a UK song,
it's a Brooklyn dude and a Russian dude,
but it's got that kind of like energy.
It's the shit you used to hear and be like,
oh, that sounds like it hit in the UK.
And then at some point,
the songs that sounded like hits in the UK
started being hits in the US.
- The song apparently took off on TikTok.
- Ah, there you go.
That's kind of always the answer.
Anytime you're kind of like, what's the story with this?
It's TikTok.
The number four song right now is Tory Lanez, "Stupid Again."
- I just want to say from the bottom of my heart,
I'd like to take this chance to apologize.
- Jake, do you know who Tory Lanez is?
- No.
- To absolutely nobody.
The double champions of the world.
- It starts with a sample of Conor McGregor,
the UFC fighter.
- Oh, is that what that was?
- Yeah, him just talking.
♪ I'm a fool or a freak ♪
♪ Just made a flip out the rock ♪
♪ That's Frank Mueller, I tell 'em I did Joola ♪
- So Tory Lanez has been hosting quarantine radio
via Instagram Live,
and he got banned last week due to nudity.
Although he claims he didn't have any nudity
on his Instagram Live show.
Only a girl sucking on a gummy bear.
- Damn.
- But then he claims that he played Instagram,
his new project,
and they loved it so much that they're lifting the ban.
- Tory Lanez sounds like a guy
that was in the band like Poison.
- Yeah, totally.
You know what I mean?
Tory Lanez, rhythm guitar and Poison.
- He's Canadian.
- Is he from Toronto?
- He's actually from Brampton,
which is like a suburb of Toronto.
- What's Brampton like?
You've been out there a sign for?
- Yeah, I've been out there a couple times.
It's like a typical--
- It's like a suburb?
- Suburb, yeah.
Yeah, it's on the outskirts.
- Brampton is such a classic Canadian town name.
What is it about Brampton that sounds so Canadian?
- Yeah, I don't know.
It's like that slight,
almost Scottish-Irish vibe to it or something.
- Right.
- You can sort of hear it in that,
that extreme Canadian accent or something.
- Brampton.
Yeah, no, but Tory Lanez is definitely like a metal man.
Motley Crue movie.
- Nicky Sixx and his good buddy, Tory Lanez.
- So listen, Nicky and Tory Lanez,
they felt like getting some fresh air.
Only one thing,
they wanted to do it in a Maserati.
(laughing)
And let's say Tory didn't like going slow.
- Wait, did we ever talk about that Motley Crue movie?
The Dirt?
- We must've referenced it on the show.
- You watched it, right?
- Oh, hell yeah.
- We definitely did.
- Okay.
- Great film, worth watching.
The next song is Roddy Ricch to the Box.
I don't know if we can say anything else
about Roddy Ricch to the Box.
- Finally, item number one.
- It's item number one.
- Should we just move on?
- Yeah, okay.
Number two, The Weekend, Blinding Lights.
This is the one that I think was inspired by "Aha."
- Oh, this is, okay.
- Yeah, I like the song now.
- I'm kind of shocked.
We haven't done the top five in like at least a month.
And like, it's weird how long things stick around.
- Maybe COVID froze culture a little bit.
- Oh yeah.
- The number, God, there's so many Canadians in the top five.
Simples, how do you feel about this?
- Well, I don't know why you gotta say it
with such disdain, like you got this like.
- Specifically Toronto based.
- Who is it?
What is it, Bieber?
- Number one is Drake, Tootsie Slide.
- Oh, I like this one.
This was like made for TikTok.
- Jake, have you heard the song or seen the video?
- No, I've not heard it or seen it.
- It's like a classic Drake song,
but the chorus gives you the moves to a very simple dance.
♪ Nike cross body, got a piece in it ♪
♪ Got a dance, but it's really on some street ♪
♪ I'ma show you how to get it ♪
♪ It go right foot up, left foot slide ♪
♪ Left foot up, right foot slide ♪
♪ Basically I'm saying either way we 'bout to slide ♪
♪ Can't let this one slide ♪
- This is hysterical.
- Wait, pause it for a second.
- Wait, wait, wait, sorry, what is it?
Right foot slide, left foot slide.
♪ It go right foot up, left foot slide ♪
♪ Left foot up, right foot slide ♪
♪ Basically I'm saying either way we 'bout to slide ♪
♪ Can't let this one slide ♪
- I saw people being like, this is Drake's,
the haters were being like, this is a flop.
This is Drake's craven attempt at just trying
to create a TikTok moment, which should happen naturally.
A true TikTok moment is an old song
that gets remixed by a Russian DJ
and then takes off years later.
Not a billionaire rapper just, you know,
pulling it out of thin air.
But I guess to Drake's credit,
it wouldn't be Drake if he just said like,
hey, what's up everybody, it's Drake.
He has to have at least some plan words.
So he's saying, black leather gloves, no sequins,
buckles on the jacket, it's a leek's (beep)
Nike crossbody, got a piece in it,
gotta dance but it's really on some street (beep)
I'm gonna show you how to get it.
So he's, okay, he's talking about some,
his clothing and he's got a gun and he's gotta dance.
It goes right foot up, left foot slide,
left foot up, right foot slide.
Basically I'm saying either way we 'bout to slide,
hey, can't let this one slide.
I really want it to come together.
I don't know if it does, but I see what he's trying to do.
- What does he mean we're gonna slide?
- I think he means we're gonna leave the club together.
- Okay. - Yeah.
- And go home and have a sexual intercourse.
- Can't let this one slide.
I can't let this sexual tension slide.
- I think it's like, I can't let you out of my sight.
I can't let go of you.
- And then he makes it more clear in the second verse.
Don't you wanna dance with me?
No, I could dance like Michael Jackson.
I could give you thug passion.
It's a thriller in the trap where we were from.
If you don't know, Thriller's a Michael Jackson album,
so it's kind of a plan words.
Baby, don't you wanna dance with me?
No, I could dance like Michael Jackson.
I could give you satisfaction.
And you know, we out here every day with it.
I'm gonna show you how to get it.
Okay, now I understand.
I think you're right, Seinfeld.
He's at the club.
He's got his gloves and his gun.
- The gun.
Are you an assassin?
Is there a reference to that?
- Yeah, he says Nike crossbody got a piece in it.
Wait, what does the crossbody refer to?
Oh, it's a bag.
- It's like his fanny pack.
- But it's a fanny pack that you wear
like kind of across your body.
- Yeah.
- But also, I'm picturing Drake talking to a girl
in the club and he's like, yo, check out my gloves.
What's up, I'm Drake.
And she's like, oh, ha ha, I know who you are.
And he's like, check out my gloves.
And she's like, they're really nice.
And then he whispers in his ear,
I have a gun in my fanny pack.
(laughing)
And she's like, what the did you just say to me?
And he's like, I have a gun in my fanny pack.
And she's like, oh, and she starts walking away.
He's like, no, no, I'm sorry, I wasn't threatening you.
I was just trying to show off.
Anyway, I made up a dance.
And she's like, really?
And then he has to make it up on the spot.
How does it go?
So basically this whole song is Drake accidentally scared
somebody he was hitting on by telling her
he had a gun in his fanny pack.
And then he had to make up a dance on the spot
to not seem like a weirdo.
- That's why the dance is so simple.
- Yeah.
If Drake had a full day to come up with a dance,
it'd be all sorts of crazy.
You couldn't even explain it in a song.
That's why it's so simple.
I'm a little disappointed 'cause when I first heard it,
for whatever reason, maybe because like Vanfer,
we can always does one of our go-to covers
is Bruce Springsteen, "I'm Going Down."
Him saying, basically I'm saying,
either way we about to slide.
People don't even say slide this way.
But for some reason I thought like,
it would make sense like a Drake sad dance
where he's like, this is my song, "The Toosie Slide."
But you know what?
It doesn't even matter.
'Cause either way, we're about to slide into a recession.
Like I'm going down,
just like I'm about to slide into a depression.
Or he just meant like I'm going down.
And then he's like, can't let this one slide.
Also, there's something about telling somebody a dance
but going, it go right foot up, left foot slide,
left foot up, right foot slide.
Basically I'm saying either way we about to slide,
hey, can't let this one slide.
It's almost like it's a depressive dance.
Generally speaking. - It's almost like,
yeah, either way we're about to die.
- Basically I'm saying either way we about to die,
you can't let that one slide.
I remember the night that this came out,
I watched the video.
And it's an interesting video, Jake, you should watch it.
It's a little bit Nancy Pelosi-esque
because it's a very important famous person
making the decision to show the world their home.
- Oh, wow.
- In COVID times, obviously you're gonna be having
a lot of that, but for better for worse,
you're kind of demystifying when you see how people live.
And right after Drake made the video,
'cause the whole video, it's like one or two shots
where basically you're walking through his house,
which is in some very fancy suburb of Toronto.
Apparently the house has cost like 50 or $100 million
or something.
And the week the video came out
where he walks you through his crazy house,
and then it ends with him in the backyard
and fireworks go off, which I'm so curious about
what the neighbors thought about that.
But a big Architectural Digest article came out
about Drake's new house, and you get to talk
to the interior decorator and all that (beep).
Actually, somebody wanna send Jake the article?
I just wanna hear Jake's take when he sees the pictures.
- It's cool he still lives in Toronto.
- I think it's one of many abodes,
but I imagine this is his most extravagant property.
It's 50,000 square feet.
With amenities such as an NBA regulation size
indoor basketball court,
crowned by a 21 square foot pyramidal skylight.
- Oh, wow.
- It's clearly a house made for entertaining.
- It's so brutal.
- Brutalist?
- It's brutalist, it's brutal, it's not tasteful.
- It's a little Trump, but.
- Yeah, it's just, gaudy as all hell.
I mean, it's just.
- It looks expensive.
- It wouldn't be like a comfortable place to like hang out.
It's very cold.
Ugh, come on, man.
- It looks like a hotel, right?
- A bar. - A bar.
- Yeah.
- Or like a high-end condo or something.
- I'm not mad at it.
Like, to be totally honest, like some of it,
it's neither tasteful in like the traditional classical way
nor is it tasteful in like the slick modern way.
But some of it is like some of these rooms,
if like you were hanging out with like some like
playboy Italian.
- Yeah.
- Or like a guy whose family owned a giant car company
in like the '70s and you walked into that room,
you'd be kind of like, this is sick.
Like the weird browns and oranges and.
- It's crazy high ceilings.
- I like this quote where they talk,
Drake's favorite spot in the house,
this is 3,200 square foot master bedroom suite.
- Hell yeah.
- This house actually could have the line
which in the wardrobe, frozen world.
His master bedroom suite, 3,200 square feet,
that's far bigger than most people's houses.
With an additional 1,100 square feet of covered terraces.
So that's a 4,300 square foot bedroom area.
And Drake says, "The bedroom is where I come
"to decompress from the world at the end of the night
"and where I open my eyes to seize the day."
- He basically just said,
"The bedroom is where I go to bed and where I wake up."
(laughing)
- But Drake is kind of a genius.
Like you wonder if when he says something like that,
it is a mix of like bravado,
but also he kind of knows it's funny.
- Chaining Tatum.
- Chaining Tatum, yeah, it's a Chaining Tatum type line.
But also I wonder if he just wrote these lines out
in an email and they forwarded it to the journalist
or if they said, or he was showing them around
and just holding a tape recorder and they're just like,
"So why did you spend so much time
"to get the bedroom suite right
"and dedicate so much space to it?"
And he was just like there thinking and he's like,
"Well, the bedroom's where I come to decompress
"from the world at the end of the night
"and where I open my eyes to seize the day."
Like did that just come out of his mouth?
Either way, he's a genius.
Either way, I'm not mad at it.
There is a paradox to luxury.
I've always thought this.
I remember watching a documentary about David Geffen
and David Geffen is a very iconic media figure.
He worked with all sorts of incredible artists
and he helped make a lot of them stars.
Eagles, Joni Mitchell, you name it.
But when you watch this documentary,
you basically say like, okay, he was this really smart guy,
but he also burnt a lot of bridges.
For everybody who says, "Thank you,
"you helped make my career, I owe you everything."
There was somebody else who was like,
"Man, (beep) that guy."
Business people, they're gonna make a lot of friends
and even more enemies.
So basically you watch this thing
and it kind of ends with him sitting at this huge
like Beverly Hills estate that he bought,
which used to belong to one of the original
Hollywood magnates, like a Warner brother
or something like that.
I forget who exactly.
And for him, this ambitious guy who kind of came from nowhere
and became a media magnate to own this like insane spread
that was built by one of the godfathers of Hollywood
was like a real achievement.
But then I remember, and I wonder if they did it on purpose,
then the camera pans away and he's,
I think at that point in his life, he was single,
living by himself in this giant house
and it kind of pans away and you see him just like sitting
in a chair on this massive estate and the camera pans away
and he just like looks so small,
just engulfed by this huge expanse.
And then you start thinking like,
"Man, this is a guy who like alienated a lot of people."
And he's, you know, I'm sure he's got friends
and he probably throws like sick parties sometimes,
but it's like kind of like a weird Gatsby type image
of like the dude surrounded by so much luxury.
And that is the ultimate paradox of wealth and luxury.
You're rich enough and popular enough
that you could have a regulation basketball court
inside your house in an urban area.
You can afford to build it, you can make it sick,
and you probably know enough people that every now and then
you probably got NBA dudes shooting around.
But to have that means that 99% of the time
you have an NBA regulation size basketball court
sitting empty.
- Collecting dust, yeah.
- Right.
I'm sure a lot of people listening now
who are quarantined are like wishing
they had a little more space at home, obviously.
Living on top of each other can drive people crazy,
but it is so extreme.
Just, yeah, you think about now during quarantine,
just like this full empty basketball court.
- Like it's so extreme.
It's like getting around by yourself.
- Shooting around by yourself in there.
- Yeah, you have by yourself.
- Yeah, having the bowling alley.
I do think that video is kind of fascinating.
It's worth watching the Tuesday slide.
And hats off to Drake, another hit.
You proved the haters wrong.
- I feel like this entire run of "Time Crisis"
the last bunch of years, he's always in the mix.
- And he's always dropping that song
that somebody's like, "The streak's over,"
and it never is.
I just hope that he has good friends
and one day a life partner that he can shoot around with
because I don't like picturing him alone
in his giant basketball court.
That depresses me.
- Yeah, that's rough.
- That's a wrap on TC.
Thanks everybody.
We'll see you guys in a week.
- "Time Crisis" with Ezra Koenig.
Yeah!
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