Episode 172: Dr
Links
Transcript
Transcript
Time Crisis, back again.
Farolito, Voltaggio, Jones, Ralston.
What do these names have in common?
You'll see, on this week's Time Crisis.
We talk Arizona Iced Tea, Paul McCartney, and Three Dog Night.
All that, plus so much more music, and food.
This is Time Crisis, with Ezra Koenig.
Dig it!
And in all of those great romances
You were a pal to rob in me
All my rightful chances
But picture clear
Everything seemed so easy
And so I dealt you the blow
One of us had to go
Now it's different I want you to know
One of us is crying
One of us is lying
Leave an only man
Time Crisis, back again.
Got so much to discuss.
Wow, I mean, first of all, Jake, you're coming real hot.
You said you want to kick off the show with a Sweet Chili Heat world premiere.
I don't think we've ever done that.
Opening?
Yeah.
With a Sweet Chili Heat world premiere?
Let's not delay any longer.
There is a new BTS single.
And I guess there's a full album that's out from BTS.
So I think without any further ado, we do the Sweet Chili Heat premiere.
We listen to it. I haven't heard it.
Wait, Jake.
Then we can discuss.
You're talking about the Korean boy band, BTS?
What? Who's that?
Okay.
I think they're...
No, obviously I'm talking about Boise, Idaho's Built to Spill.
You're listening to Time Crisis.
When we talk about BTS
we're referring to Built to Spill.
[BTS]
Time Crisis.
This is the Time Crisis Sweet Chili Heat.
Sweet Chili Heat world premiere.
Brought to you by Doritos. Sweet Chili Heat.
Oh, this is it.
Kind of reminds me of Lit.
Mm-hmm.
Doing those half-steps.
[singing]
Whoa.
[singing]
So Jake, this rocks a bit harder than classic BTS.
Am I right?
Yeah, a little bit.
Yeah, I mean, coming out of the gates, it was coming in hot.
This sounds pretty classic, this part, though.
This sounds like 2000.
Yeah, you know their catalogue much better than I do.
I mean, I like it.
He's talking about being on acid and...
[singing]
That's classic.
I feel it was used to being a little more airy.
It definitely felt heavier.
Yeah, because when I think of them, I'm always thinking of the pretty, like,
Twin Falls, Idaho.
[singing]
This drummer is maybe a little busier.
Is this a different drummer?
I don't know what the lineup is.
The drummer is giving me different vibes than the previous material.
[singing]
Yeah, this part reminds me of Led.
Ooh!
I like this.
It sounds great, though.
Yeah, no, it tastes good, though.
Yeah, this drumming part right here is pretty head-beating.
Yeah, and I love his voice.
Oh.
Short and sweet.
All right, so, yeah, so Jake, as the most seasoned
Build to Spill fan in the crew,
what do you got to say about it that you didn't already say?
I mean, return to form.
Not that they ever really left their form.
I think Doug Marsh is kind of, you know, he gets compared to Neil Young
maybe a little bit for his voice and his guitar playing,
but also kind of his consistency.
I mean, he's got his sound, and that's what he does, man.
He's like a mature artist.
This is my aesthetic.
Right.
I'm not going to steer too far from the path.
And if you're a fan, you're going to dig it.
There's enough kind of freshness that it's, like, gripping.
And how old is he?
He must be in his 50s, right?
Yeah.
I don't know what his DOB is.
Can I get a number crunch?
Doug Marsh, DOB?
I'm guessing he's, like, 54.
63.
No!
He's born in '63.
Wait, I have him in 1960.
Oh, yeah, yeah, right.
1969.
52 years old.
So we're getting a six-year differential on that number crunch?
I'm going off wiki.
I don't know what Nick's looking at.
Well, if he's born in '60s, that makes a little more sense.
Born in '69, that means he releases, like, There's Nothing Wrong With Love when he was, like, 25.
He releases that in, like, '94.
Jay-Z was also born in '69.
He's a vegetarian.
Did you know that?
Not shocked by that.
Okay.
He seems like a hippie.
All right, 52 years old.
The big question is, does he still live in Idaho?
I think so.
I haven't heard any different.
He seems like a real, like, he's, like, committed to Idaho.
That's tight.
Like, the little that I know about him.
When you're from a cool place like Idaho, I mean, obviously, there's somebody listening to Idaho who's like, "No, I grew up in Idaho.
I didn't like it.
I had to move to Silver Lake."
We'd have passed judgment on them.
Sure.
But, you know, for us, tri-state area, coastal elites, when we hear someone's from Idaho, we're like, "That's tight, man.
It's a cool place to be from."
Imagine just, like, born and raised in Boise, holding it down, start a legendary band.
You referenced Twin Falls.
I think he might be, I'm guessing here, just based on the story that his songs tell, that maybe he was from, like, the Twin Falls area, which is maybe not as prosperous an
area as Boise.
Maybe a little rough.
I'm picturing him leaving the Twin Falls area in southern Idaho.
And moving to the big cities.
Which I've driven through many times.
It is like, I've driven through there in the summer, like southern Idaho.
It's just like, blasted.
Hot as hell.
Dry.
Just desolate.
And then I'm picturing him moving to Boise, starting the band.
What, Seinfeld?
Yeah, yeah.
Wiki has his origin, his birthplace as Twin Falls.
See, you nailed that.
Also, he did an interview with the Idaho Press where in 2019 it appears that he's still based in Boise.
Now, does that interview ask him about BTS?
The other BTS?
You know, they don't touch on it from what I can tell.
You talking about the Korean boy band?
I am talking about the Korean boy band.
Yeah, there's no mention of--
As we've discussed, Time Crisis is one of the first places that made BTS built to spill jokes.
And that's not because we're so far ahead of the curve.
It's probably just because we were one of the few places where one of the hosts is a hardcore built to spill fan and BTS is on the docket regularly.
You know what I mean?
That's just not a mix you're getting a lot.
I heard that there was a Pitchfork tweet where they made a joke, "BTS drops a new single."
And it was built to spill.
I haven't listened yet, but a friend of the show, Stephen Hyden, has a great podcast called IndieCast.
And I saw a description of one of their new episodes.
One of the things on their docket was "BTS built to spill jokes."
I tuned into that.
Oh, yeah.
So what did they have to say about it?
Well, I was hoping for the TC shoutout.
Didn't get it.
Damn.
Slightly disappointed.
Hyden's on thin ice.
No, I mean, all I remember Stephen saying was basically like, "He's always there for a built to spill BTS joke."
It's never going to get old.
It's never not funny.
It's ever gold.
I mean, it's ever green.
It's ever gold.
Ever gold.
Ever green.
And I fully agree.
And I feel like TC, like you said, was an early innovator in this space.
Jake's one of the few true 90s indie heads who straddles multiple worlds.
Jake's blasting built to spill in the studio during painting.
And then with one of his other jobs as a radio personality, he's counting down the hot singles of the day.
And his job forces him to be up on built to spill.
Sorry, on BTS.
Right.
I don't think I would really know about BTS if it wasn't for TC.
Yeah, that's an interesting question.
How much stuff we cover on the show you would have like literally never heard of.
At this point, I would have heard of BTS, but I would have been like confused.
Right.
Like that's a weird band name.
Did we ever talk about this?
Why are they called BTS?
Does it stand for something?
We talked about it.
I think it has to do with like the area they're from or hang on a second.
It's okay.
No.
Recrunch.
It stands for built to spill.
B is for built to spill.
T is for totally and the S is for sucks.
They hate built to spill.
They're built to spill haters.
All right.
I was wrong.
So in Korean BTS Bangtan Sonyeondan.
I probably botched that so badly translates loosely in English to bulletproof boy scouts.
That's tight.
That's hard.
The group have announced a switch to the name beyond the scene, which hopefully doubles as a different version of the acronym BTS.
It is funny how when you have a name like that, you can just change with acronym is at various points.
But I like bulletproof boy scouts.
That sounds like a early 2000s emo band like a screamo band.
We got bulletproof boy scouts are opening for My Chemical Romance.
Bulletproof boy scouts.
Bring me the horizon.
Like I'm a little I don't know that world well enough other than I do.
I've always liked My Chemical Romance.
Great Jersey band.
They're gonna clean up your looks with all the lies in the books to make a citizen out of you.
Because they sleep with a gun and keep an eye on you son.
So they can watch all the things you do.
Because the drugs never work.
They're gonna give you a smirk.
Cause they got methods of keeping you clean.
They're gonna rip up your heads, your aspirations to shreds.
Another cog in the murder machine.
They said I'm teenager scared.
Believe it's not on me.
They can kill us as long as I'm out of bleed.
So don't get your clothes off like a violent host.
Maybe you're lady love but not me.
I want to point out really quickly just how acute the BTS ears are on Jake.
That it is a new drummer.
Whoa.
Nice Jake.
Yeah, it's a new drummer.
I'm looking at her LinkedIn.
And this also just interests me because her LinkedIn is that she's...
What's her name?
Teresa Esquera.
You got her whole resume on LinkedIn?
I do.
It's interesting.
Just the idea that a band met like that music, musical artists would have LinkedIn's I find interesting.
But this says she's an occupational therapist and drummer.
Sick.
I've always been kind of confused.
An occupational therapist, does that have to do with movement?
Is it similar to sports therapists?
It's for children, right?
It's helping them with their motor skills and grasping implements.
Really?
Well...
Wow.
Okay.
I think that's part of it.
That's a great question, Ezra.
Because I was thinking, yeah, it was related to like, oh, I have carpal tunnel.
I have an injury sustained because of my work.
But Seinfeld's on a different tip.
Okay, hold on.
I'm doing some number crunching, some word crunching.
My bad.
I narrowed it down.
It can be for kids, but yeah.
It involves the use of assessment and intervention to develop, recover, or maintain the meaningful
activities or occupations of individual groups or communities.
That's like borderline could cover any type of therapy.
It's basically just to help you get back on track, help you live your life.
Is that what it is?
To get you back on track.
So she's doing therapy in Boise, and she's also sitting in with BTS, doing some pretty
complicated fills.
Interesting.
So she's going to hit the road?
I wonder how that works with her clients.
I mean, BTS was just on the road.
They played Pappy and Harriet's in February.
I missed them.
They played in SoCal in February, the day before Dinosaur Jr. played at Pappy's, and
I was already going to Dino, and I was like, "I can't double dip."
I mean, I could have, but I can't double dip.
Dino Jr. and Build to Spill back to back out in the dead.
That seems like such a missed opportunity to do one mega show.
I know.
And then I saw GBV, Pappy's, two weeks ago.
So Pappy's is dialed in with '90s indie rock.
Interesting.
Oh, that was the joke that they made on IndieCast, recounting other podcasts.
It'd be so amazing if there was a Korean boy band called GBV.
Oh, yeah.
Great call.
Just like other weird '90s acronyms.
How many members are in Build to Spill?
I've seen them as a trio.
I've seen them as a five-piece.
I prefer five-piece.
So like the Korean boy band, also five-piece.
This is a perfect setup for a Freaky Friday.
The two wake up at each other's.
I would watch that movie.
You know, the funny thing about this is that it's such asymmetrical warfare.
You know, it's just like BTS is just so much bigger than Build to Spill.
Not that it matters, but it's like if they were a little bit closer,
you know, if this was like the '90s and BTS was like a big band
and then Build to Spill was like, you know, like a solid alt-rock band,
they probably would have had a moment at the VMAs, you know what I mean?
Where like Howard Stern does a bit with them or something.
Like Howard Stern's like, "I didn't mean that, BTS!"
And then it cuts to like Dave Grohl laughing his ass off and like,
[bleep]
Snoop Dogg's like clapping in the audience like, "Oh, [bleep]!"
"I didn't mean that, BTS!"
But it's just like in 2022, it's just so miles apart.
Just a huge chasm.
Yeah.
I think that's what's going to make this movie work.
I think Seinfeld's on to something.
It's sort of like in Freaky Friday when you really talk about a child and a parent
and how they really can't--
Their lives are so different.
Their lives are so different that you have BTS--
It has to be asymmetrical.
Yeah, it has to be.
That this Korean boy band that is the global sensation
wakes up in Boise, Idaho.
Wait, hold on.
In a 50-year-old man's body.
Can they only speak Korean?
Do they have very limited English skills?
Yeah, I feel like the Korean BTS, I feel like they are semi-fluent.
I would say we got to take a creative liberty here.
I don't think you could make that movie if you have like,
Tim Heidecker plays Doug Marsh and he has a Korean accent the whole movie.
No, I think we got to-- we just have to take a creative liberty--
That's not going to fly.
All right, that part, okay.
No, no, it's really about them dealing with--
You know, now they're like-- they're still making music,
but they're sort of dealing with a different level of fame.
The same way, "Spill to Spill" wakes up and they're like,
"Oh my God, we can't go outside without being recognized."
And how are we going to make a hit?
Maybe it's even part of it is like, they're going to have--
How do we make what we do a hit on a global level?
Wait, so just to really understand the rules of the universe,
Doug Marsh's consciousness wakes up
in one of the members of BTS' body.
So Doug Marsh wakes up in a beautiful 20-something Korean man's body in Seoul.
Yes, very Bing John Malkovich.
But he speaks perfect Korean.
Yes, for the purposes of the film, let's just keep it that way.
Yeah, for the purpose of the film, I think that it's--
the truth is that Hollywood would probably say,
"Everybody speaks English in this."
You know, we're casting Korean actors that speak English.
But--
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But also given the success of the Squid Games,
everybody speaks Korean. I don't know.
The idea--
All the scenes in Boise are in Korean.
That'd be amazing.
All right, I like that.
Subtitled.
Let's turn the tables on this.
But I think what you're saying, yes, it's his consciousness.
He's now, "Wow, I'm used to being in a band,
but I've operated in this way.
I've had this sort of level of fame.
I mean, I think about songwriting in a certain way."
But do they--
Is there any sort of crossover as far as like,
do the talents kind of co-mingle?
Like, does Doug Marsh have the sudden--
like a bit of the pop songwriting aura,
or it's clean?
It's a clean swap.
Do you know what I mean?
I know, I think it's a clean swap.
Can they adapt easily?
It's a clean swap.
He wakes up and stumbles in the bathroom,
and he looks in the mirror, and he's like, "Ahh!"
[laughter]
Or just also, we do it--
we play it kind of straight and like very emotional,
and it's like--
who's like a famous guy from BTS?
Great question.
Who's the number one heartthrob?
Oh yeah, Jungkook.
People always are talking about Jungkook, or--
there's three rappers,
and there's a lot of rappers in BTS.
V? One guy is just named V.
Okay, maybe we'll just say V,
because we're probably pronouncing that correctly.
So it's like, Doug Marsh wakes up,
and he's in V's body,
and like, you know, first thing, like, in the morning,
all these people from Big Hit Entertainment,
their management/record company,
are like talking to him,
and he's just like saying to them like,
"Guys, I need--
I'm assuming also that Doug has kids."
He's like, "Guys, you need to get me on the first flight to Boise.
I have to see my kid."
And it's like this really like emotional gripping.
Maybe that's just the story.
It's actually--
we don't have that much fun with the music stuff.
There's no music stuff.
It's not that-- it's not fun.
There's no jokes.
Not even bittersweet like yesterday.
It's just straight up a sad--
It's just harrowing.
It's just a harrowing, sad movie
about a man who woke up in a Korean boy band member--
a Caucasian man from Boise
who wakes up in a Korean boy band member's body in Seoul
and just about like logistically
just trying to get home to see his child.
And it's so hard because every time he tries to leave,
they're like, "Where are you going?"
-Where's Boise? -You got a show to do.
You have to do--
Why do you--
But their schedules have to be so tightly constructed
that he can't even leave.
And then how is he going to leave?
Because everyone will go,
"Oh, you're that famous guy."
-Can't walk. -Get back on the bus.
Right, right, right.
Yeah, like he tried--
The manager's like, "You're not going anywhere."
And he's just like, "F*** this. I'm out of here.
I'll f***ing walk to the airport if I have to."
And he walks outside and he's mobbed.
Oh, that's a great plot point.
He walks outside and people lose their f***
because of a dude from BTS.
And he's like trying to talk to people.
He's like, "Hey, excuse me.
Sorry, I'm not from around here.
How do you get on a bus to the airport?"
And just everybody's like, "Ah!"
And then, yeah, he gets so scared he has to go back in.
And then he tries to call his son.
And his son is just like--
Maybe his son's also a massive BTS fan
and doesn't really f*** with Bill to the spill.
I love that.
I'm sure there's a 12-year-old boy in Boise right now
who's a giant BTS fan, right?
-Of course. -Absolutely.
That's what's happening.
Then he FaceTimes him and he's just like,
"Billy!"
And he's like, "Oh, my God, V!
Oh, my God!"
He's like, "No, Billy!
It's your father!"
"What? Your father?
Doug Marsh?"
And here's my pitch how he gets home.
A little bit of Home Alone in here, too,
like on the journey home.
The only person that can get him home
is he ends up running into Jake,
like an ex-pat in Korea
who doesn't know who the Korean BTS is.
And he finally gets out and he doesn't recognize him.
-But he's a huge-- -Oh, I love that.
Bill to spill fan.
And so he believes him
and he has to sort of smuggle him back home.
How about this?
An American Gen X painter and radio personality
happens to be in Seoul
'cause he's doing his first Korean show
-of his paintings. -That's good.
-Love it. -That's good.
And he's wearing an old Bill to spill shirt.
And then this guy's like running--
it's like "Beetle Mania."
He's like running down the street
and like a gang of people are chasing him.
Then he sees this guy Jake and he like grabs him.
He's like, "You gotta help me!"
And Jake's like, "Whoa!"
Okay, I like where this is going.
"Where did you get that shirt?"
"I bought it for $400 on eBay."
No, no, no.
No, because Jake would just be like,
"Uh, Portland, '96."
-Yeah, dude. -Yeah.
What venue would you have seen them at?
La Luna.
La Luna, '96.
"Oh, sh*t, yeah, I remember, man.
We opened with, uh..."
That's how Korean Doug Marsh proves
that he's the real dude
'cause he knows all these obscure facts
that only Jake knows about that show.
-True. -He has--
-Or, no. -He's a huge super fan.
He's like, "I played Lewis & Clark College,
Spring Fling in '98.
Wolf Colonel opened."
"I'm in Wolf Colonel!"
"Dude, I was in Wolf Colonel!"
♪ Is this what we asked for? ♪
♪ Is this what we gave? ♪
♪ Is this what we asked for? ♪
♪ Is this what we gave? ♪
♪ Oh ♪
♪ Oh ♪
And then what's happening on the other end
where Jungkook or V's consciousness
is in Doug Marsh?
-So, Meineker's playing Doug.
-If we want to make our life easier
and not have to do some, like, crazy
Inception-like interweaving stories,
how about this?
Most of the action's taking place in Seoul
where Jungkook runs into Jake,
and then the Doug character
just happened to be hiking
in the mountains of Idaho for two days.
And so, on that end, it's pretty simple.
That's just like a survival story.
-It's a survival story,
but I also like this idea that here's this kid
that has probably had no free time,
no way to connect with, you know,
with himself or nature.
He's just around so many people,
so many fans.
So, if you give it that he's lost in the woods,
he just comes out, like, totally enlightened.
You know what I mean?
-Yeah, actually, that's interesting.
Imagine that you were in, like,
the most famous boy band on Earth.
You have to work so hard.
You have no privacy.
You're probably in some, like,
beautiful penthouse apartment in Seoul,
but probably a little bit lonely and alienated.
Like, imagine, like, the night before,
he's on his knees praying to God,
just like, "Give me a change in my life."
And then it's like the Freaky Friday moment
happens, he opens his eyes,
and he's just looking at, like,
untouched Idaho wilderness.
That's interesting.
-And he, yeah, he has three days of just solitude.
It's like a weird castaway kind of thing.
-Yeah, those scenes are very quiet,
very artful, tender.
-That side is like the revenant.
-Yes, like, kill a bear.
-And then he emerges from that,
and he has a completely different
aesthetic vision for BTS.
Actually, the two BTSs are actually closer now.
-Ooh, this is getting good.
-It's getting really good.
-And actually, the two BTSs team up.
-Oh, they finally team up.
-It has to end with all 10 members
playing some version of...
-Just like an '80s or '90s movie
where, yeah, it ends with, like,
a concert, and they're doing a song onstage,
and everybody from the movie...
-We all know the world.
-Yeah.
And everybody's, like, high-fiving and thumbs up,
and, like, the random, like, you know,
like, Rob Schneider comic relief.
You pan him, and he's side stage,
and he's like, "All right!"
[ Laughter ]
-All right. I feel like we've sketched this out.
This is good stuff.
-How many time crisis movies do you think there are
that...
-Like, 10?
-Yeah, maybe like 10.
One of the original ones was also a boy band movie,
and that was about Nile from One Direction
moving to Nantucket
and developing a relationship with...
-Oh, yeah.
-...Don Henley owned a hardware store?
Yeah. Okay.
That might have been one of the first ones.
-Wait. Did Don Henley own the hardware store,
or did I own the hardware store?
[ Laughter ]
-It doesn't matter.
-Oh, Jake owned the hardware store.
-Right, 'cause his song had, like, a Don Henley energy,
dirty laundry energy.
-Yeah.
-There's a Travis Scott "Back to the Future."
-I barely remember that, but, okay, I kind of do.
We're looking for a 10-picture deal.
-Slight deal.
-We can make these movies relatively cheap,
maybe $40 million to $50 million a pop,
so we're looking for a fund of about $500 million.
-Looking at you, Apple TV.
-Well, hang on a second.
Would Apple TV+ technically already own all of this IP?
-Oh, hell no.
-Oh. Oh, no.
-I mean, we got to look at that fine print.
-Yeah, imagine we start going out and pitching this,
and somebody's like, "Oh, yeah, that's funny.
We met with some executives from Apple.
They pitched us all these ideas."
They own them, you fools.
-A detailed contract I signed with the Apple Corporation.
[ Laughter ]
-The next season of "Severance" has quite a few references
to the Travis Scott "Back to the Future" concept.
A lot of people have been wondering
where "Severance" is heading.
There's a bit of a Travis Scott "Back to the Future" thing
in season two that answers a lot of questions.
-We have about 30 different versions of "Yesterday"
that we've worked out,
but full movies, not just ideas.
-Oh, yeah, we had the idea of --
Oh, no, that was a prank show
where Paul McCartney goes and pitches the movie "Yesterday"
to studio executives.
Maybe that might have been part of gentle gestures.
Well, okay, we're gonna get
the "Time Crisis" legal team to look into this,
and then we'll get started on the films.
-♪ We should take this back to my place ♪
♪ That's what she said right to my face ♪
♪ 'Cause I want you bad ♪
♪ Yeah, I want you, baby ♪
♪ I've been thinking 'bout it all day ♪
♪ And I hope you feel the same way, yeah ♪
♪ 'Cause I want you bad ♪
♪ Yeah, I want you, baby ♪
♪ Slow, slow hands ♪
♪ Like sweat dripping down my dirty laundry ♪
♪ No, no chance ♪
♪ That I'm leaving here without you on me ♪
♪ Yeah, I know ♪
♪ Yeah, I already know that there ain't no stopping ♪
♪ Your plans and those slow hands ♪
-Been a lot of talk recently about Arizona Iced Tea.
We're hoping that we're gonna get somebody
from the Arizona Iced Tea organization
soon on the program.
Not today, but maybe today we can get
to a little bit of backstory,
because I just feel like there's so much Arizona stuff
floating out in the ether.
Everybody's talking about Arizona Iced Tea,
and I mean, the number one reason they're talking about it
is because after 30 years,
the Arizona Iced Tea big can still costs 99 cents.
So that's been the major topic of conversation,
which is pretty incredible when you think about it.
And especially right now, because everybody's talking about
not only inflation, but also shrinkflation,
which who has a handle on shrinkflation?
-The anecdote that I heard was Doritos
is slightly reducing the amount of chips per bag.
-Right.
-Instead of raising prices to counter inflation.
-Right, they've reduced each bag by five chips.
-Which is semi-significant.
I mean, wait, is that like a big, full-size,
like, grocery bag, or is that like a lunch side
at Subway bag?
-A bag that used to weigh 9.75 ounces
is now 9.25 ounces, containing five fewer chips.
Is that the party size, or is that your--
-That's gotta be party size, I would think.
-Okay.
-Or wait.
-Yeah, they gotta rename party size to [bleep] party size.
'Cause you're gonna have a [bleep] party
when you pull up with five less chips.
People are gonna know.
I feel like I've heard people say in the past,
'cause there's so much debate about,
"How bad is inflation? Is it even happening?"
And people say, "Oh, no, that's like one political party
using it as a talking point to blame the administration
or something."
But I have heard that in the past,
that because of shrinkflation, it creeps up on you.
Because, yeah, it's one thing to go to the gas station
and say, "Holy [bleep] a gallon costs way more
than it did a week ago."
-It's like six-something out here.
-Out in California. Wild.
-Just to confirm, that's not the party size, by the way.
That's the smaller bag, so five chips.
-That's even worse, then.
-The party size is-- -That's significant.
-Honestly, if you're talking about the small bag,
that's having a real impact.
-So I got to try to understand the economy of this.
I mean, the only way this makes sense,
the economics about this, a Dorito,
a single chip, can't cost any money.
Even shrinking a Gatorade bottle,
it's like the product itself costs--
Is it solely shrinking it to make people buy twice as much?
Because they're not saving money on the cost of five less chips.
-No, but you got to scale it up. -Of course you are.
-In the total sum, if you're making billions of dollars--
-You're making billions of chips.
-So, Nick, you actually believe that Doritos cost $0 to make?
-I think a single chip, five chips,
even in the greater sum, I have to think that it is
because the real profit increase is going to be
that people are going, "F---, I got to now have
two bags of this stuff because I'm only getting five chips."
-No, it's five less chips. -Yes, I know, but in a small bag,
there's only like ten chips.
-Quick question, how much does five chips cost to make?
I think it might be like two cents or something.
-I think it's way less. -Three cents?
-Cents? No! -You think it's one cent for five chips?
-Below. -So you think each chip costs less than .2 cents?
-Yes. Yes.
-Let's say five chips is half a cent.
-Okay.
-I feel like somebody from Frito-Lay is listening right now
and saying, "You guys don't respect my work.
You don't know how much f---ing time and R&D goes into these chips."
Okay, but let's say it's half a cent for five chips.
They make so many of those little bags every day
that I feel like the first day they do that,
they're already saving hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I think that's millions in a year. -Totally.
-Millions of dollars.
-I also have to just issue a correction.
I'm so sorry about this. I've been crunching a little bit further.
There are three sizes of Doritos.
-Oh, my God.
-You get your 3.1 ounce. That's your little bag.
You got a mid-sized one. That's 9.8.
And the party size is 15.
So the five reduces from the mid-sized bag.
-So the mid-size is like when you go to the truck stop.
-These are the gas station.
-Yeah, gas station. -Yeah, okay.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, "Oh, it's a little bit bigger than the small size.
I can, you know, this is lunch."
-That's probably like a 10% reduction, I'm going to guess.
-I'm going to tell you exactly what it costs.
A 2-ounce bag, which is a lunch bag of chips,
costs the company 12 to 15 cents to produce,
to ship, deliver, and recoup any stale products in the market.
-Wow. So they must be raking it in.
-And that's where it's like it feels so, like, just make less chips feels,
I'm interested in where the savings, or the way the economics work.
-There's a famous anecdote in the airline business.
I remember hearing about this as a kid in the '90s,
and at the time it blew my mind,
and now I look backwards at it quite differently.
But at the time, I remember a kid in middle school saying to me,
"Did you know that the CEO of, let's say, American Airlines,
when he took over, he removed one olive from every salad
that they gave the passengers, and he saved the company like $40,000?"
And you know, you're being a kid, and you're just like,
"Holy s***, this man's a genius. $40,000.
Like, whoa, all he had to do was remove an olive?
Who gives a s***? He made the company $40,000."
I might have the numbers wrong,
but I remember at the time being like blown away,
and being like, "Wow, businessman. Smart. So smart."
Of course, now I look back at it, and I'm like,
"How could that money possibly have mattered
in the true operation of your business?"
And like, taking one olive away was just like part of the slippery slope
of just making air travel just like worse and worse.
Stifler, can you get a number crunch about if this is a real story?
That's a tough crunch.
Maybe also it's just like there's some MBAs rolling the Frito-Lay,
and they want to look for-- they love to cut costs.
Yeah, so you were right.
Was it American Airlines?
It was the head of American Airlines, Robert Crandall.
Crandall calculated that if they removed just one olive from every salad,
nobody would notice, and the airline would save $100,000 a year.
Creative cost cutting took off from there.
So I think it's not just the $100K.
It's what that represented because they could do a version
of the olive cutback across the board.
A pillow here, a switch in the cockpit there.
Right now you're talking millions.
Right, and that's what I'm thinking too with Frito-Lay
is that this is probably the MBAs came in.
They put together a massive budget where they're like,
"We're going to save $10 million this year," and they're like, "How?"
"First, removing five chips from the truck stop bag."
"Okay, is anybody going to notice?"
"Maybe, maybe not."
They probably had a whole laundry list of little ways like that.
One less olive in an employee salad.
A little shout-out to Crandall.
Classic move.
In 2014, Lay's did this.
In a 10-ounce bag, they took out five to six chips,
and it ended up saving them over $50 million.
Oh my God.
This is before the inflation.
This is 2014.
So I stand corrected.
I still don't understand the economic--
I just don't understand how that's possible.
It's just the scale, dude.
They're making billions of chips.
Billions, dude.
Billions.
Yeah. Wow.
But where does that money go?
It just goes to the fat cats?
Dividends for the shareholders, Ezra.
All right.
Well, I guess Joe Schmoe might own a couple shares of Frito-Lay.
Why not?
♪ Okay, I went to France to get some new pants ♪
♪ I went to Greece to get something to eat ♪
♪ I'm hard to please, I punched a referee ♪
♪ I bruised my knees, I'm pissing in debris ♪
♪ I saw the beach, I bought a tea ♪
♪ It's hot as geese, it's 100 degrees ♪
♪ I apply the lotion, I'm swimming in the ocean ♪
♪ In the West, a commotion, I'm sinking, I'm floating ♪
♪ And the TV's turn to cable ♪
♪ And I'm sleeping when I'm able ♪
♪ But the TV's aren't so loud, it hurts my brain ♪
♪ My brain, brain, brain, brain, brain, brain ♪
♪ And the TV's turn to cable ♪
♪ And I'm sleeping when I'm able ♪
♪ But the TV's aren't so loud, it hurts my brain ♪
♪ My brain, brain, brain, brain, brain, brain ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ Doritos and Fritos ♪
♪ Doritos and Fritos ♪
- All right, drinkflation.
So think about that next time you're at a truck stop.
- Maybe it's good for the American populace.
You don't need those five extra chips.
- Yeah, perhaps not.
I mean, I felt bad.
When I thought we were talking about the little lunch bags,
I was picturing a kid, 'cause we all know these kids
who came to school with like a (beep) lunch,
like brutal sandwich immediately in the trash,
and all they want to eat is their little bag of Doritos,
maybe a chocolate milk.
- Dude, I rock that hard.
- So you take a chip or two away from that,
that's really affecting that kid's bottom line.
- It's really affecting that kid's nutritional input,
his calories for the day.
- Imagine if the CEO of Frito-Lay started a campaign,
"Don't throw your sandwich out."
Listen, guys, we gotta make the earth a greener place.
We know you guys love our products,
and we know a lot of you throw your sandwich out,
and you make our delicious chips your whole meal.
I'm here to say, you can't do it anymore.
We're giving you less chips, so don't throw your sandwich out.
Maybe ultimately it would be a net positive,
a "Don't throw your sandwich out" campaign,
but many kids throw their sandwich out,
and all they care about is the chips.
So you take a few chips away from them,
that's gonna make gym class a lot harder.
They're gonna be starving.
Anyway, you know where there's not shrinkflation happening?
Arizona iced tea.
One thing I love about the Arizona iced tea story
is that it's just some New York sh*t.
1971, friends John Farallito and Don Voltaggio
opened a beverage distribution business
in Brooklyn, New York.
Hey Brooklyn!
This is a real Brooklyn story.
I mean it is funny, there's so many things
that I was associated with New York,
just growing up in the New York area.
I always thought, until I was a little bit older,
I just thought Dunkin' Donuts was a super New York thing.
It took me years to realize, oh it's kind of from Boston,
just because I'd see some Dunkin' Donuts
in my dad's car when he'd drive home from work.
I'd just have this vision of my dad,
just like, wow, just had a gritty Dunkin' Donuts
in like 1989 Manhattan.
Wow, New York.
You went Dunkin' on the way into work, dad?
That's so baller.
That's that real New York sh*t.
And I think I also felt like Arizona iced tea
felt like real tri-state to me,
but again, that's only because I encountered it
in that place, because that's where I grew up.
Anyway, they're from Brooklyn.
In 1985, Farallito and Voltaggio began brewing beer,
which included a 40-ounce malt liquor
called Midnight Dragon, and promoted it
with a poster of a woman in red lingerie
holding up a bottle, a straw in her mouth
with the caption, "I could suck."
(laughing)
Interesting syntax.
Who drinks beer with a straw?
I guess a woman in red lingerie.
Well, this is malt liquor called Midnight Dragon.
That's a dirty-ass ad, dude.
Just like--
Inappropriate.
A sexy malt liquor.
So anyway, they were doing that,
and then in '92, they launched a second malt liquor
called Crazy Horse, which I remember.
That ended up being banned by Congress
following protests by Native American groups.
Voltaggio eventually settled with Native American groups
in 2004 and renamed the drink Crazy Stallion.
(horse neighing)
He should have been like,
"It's named after Neil Young's band."
What? What's the problem?
Just a Neil Young fan.
So wait, this malt liquor gets banned,
but all these sports teams just carry--
isn't that a bit of a double standard?
I know, in '92?
I don't think Congress could have actually banned it.
I've never heard about Congress banning
an offensively named beverage,
so maybe that's not exactly correct,
but maybe Don Voltaggio is just a bit more sensitive
to the marketplace than, say, the owner
of some of these unfortunately named teams.
And he was like, "Listen, guys,
"I'm just trying to make money here.
"Let's figure something out."
So this ad is unbelievable.
The Midnight Dragon ad?
Yeah, so it is a woman in red lingerie
sucking on a 40 of malt liquor with a straw.
Sentence to the thread.
And she's saying, "I could suck!"
and then, "On this all night."
Oh, yeah, see, the syntax is really weird
because it says, "I could suck!"
with an exclamation point,
and then, "On this all night."
So there's an exclamation point
in the middle of the sentence.
"I could suck on this all night."
All right, so obviously these guys
are marketing geniuses.
And then in 1992,
following the success of Snapple,
which I also thought of Snapple
as being like a New York thing.
Is that true?
Is Snapple from New York?
I think so.
It's so random that New York is like
the home of the biggest iced tea company.
I think that you think of that
mainly because of the spokesperson.
The Snapple lady.
The Snapple lady just had that very sort of--
She was a New Yorker.
--Zine Feldean.
Yeah, it was very New York.
Well, they would advertise on Yankee games
incessantly in the '90s.
Oh, wow, listen to this.
"2003, Snapple began its sponsorship
of the New York City public school system
as part of the deal to make Snapple
New York City's official beverage."
Even though it's part of Keurig Dr. Pepper
based in Plano, Texas.
I guess that was just like
they just infused New York into their whole--
Oh, interesting.
Look, everybody knows New York is an iced tea town.
In New York, you drink Snapple,
you drink Arizona.
It's an iced tea town.
So I guess the--
John Farallito and Don Voltaggio,
they watched Snapple blow up
and then they saw,
"Well, we should make our own."
And they produced their first Arizona teas that year.
And I guess clearly,
they're very thoughtful about marketing.
They got their idea to launch with a 24-ounce can
from Schlitz beer cans back in the day
'cause they used to run a beverage distribution service.
That way, they also figured that
with that product for the classic iced tea head,
you look at that big bottle
and then you look at your dinky little Snapple glass bottle
and you're like,
"Man, I'm getting more bang for my buck."
And you were, 24 ounces versus 16 ounces.
See, these are these small things
that we take for granted now.
We're like, you know,
how does a real New Yorker drink their iced tea?
In a giant beer can.
We accept that that makes sense.
We got a picture back in '92.
This was a stroke of genius.
That big can was like,
yeah, more associated with alcohol.
The idea that you'd be drinking peach iced tea out of it
was very novel at the time.
And clearly, it worked.
- And it was like,
it had that like teal color on it.
It had that Southwest.
I love that they're from Brooklyn
'cause it was just like,
I remember being so drawn to the Arizona marketing
when I was a teenager
'cause it was like,
I was picturing,
like I'd never been to Arizona,
but in my mind's eye,
Arizona was the hottest place on planet Earth, right?
And it was like,
picturing drinking like a ice cold iced tea
in the shade,
out of the way of the Arizona sun
with that teal can.
And it was just so appealing.
- Yeah, it's beautiful.
And it's interesting how
in the past 10 years or something,
you really saw the younger generation pick up on it.
And that's when you started seeing,
you know, like,
what was that,
the Swedish guy's name,
Young Lean.
These guys are,
they're talking about Arizona iced tea.
They're wearing these like--
- Tyler the Creator and Odd Future was huge--
- And they would wear it's like sweatsuits
in these colors.
- I do wanna point out that that's no accident.
Jake's sort of association of Arizona
and the heat and wanting to drink it.
That was 100% why they named it.
And that was by design.
And the son of Voltaggio said that
this came about with the word association game
that they were playing
and connecting Arizona's climate to thirsty throats.
So--
- So literally a couple guys
probably never been west of New Jersey.
That probably isn't true,
but it's better.
It's better storytelling.
- They had never been to Arizona though.
That's a fact.
- Two guys who had never been west of the Hudson River
sitting in Brooklyn
saying, "What are we gonna call this (beep)?"
And then just spitballing and just like,
"Who wants to drink iced tea?
"Somebody's thirsty.
"You're right, somebody's thirsty.
"Okay, so what?
"So they're thirsty.
"All right, let's work with that.
"They got a thirsty throat.
"It's dry.
"It's hot like a desert.
"Okay.
"Hot like a desert.
"Desert iced tea?
"Mm, that's kinda weird."
- Texas iced tea.
- Okay, Sahara, Sahara iced tea.
Eh, let's keep it American.
- Gobi.
Oh, American, okay.
- Yeah, right?
Okay, now Texas, no, because that's Cowboys.
That's Southern.
That's not gonna play the New York crowd.
What's a little more neutral than Texas?
How about the Southwest?
New Mexico.
Mm, I don't like it.
Arizona?
They look at each other.
You know anything about Arizona?
I don't know (beep) about it.
- The golf courses, lot of retirees.
It's a Florida of the West.
- I know one thing, it's hot.
(laughs)
And thus, a star was born.
♪ By the time I get to Phoenix ♪
♪ She'll be rising ♪
♪ She'll find the note I left hanging ♪
♪ On her door ♪
♪ She'll laugh when she reads the part ♪
♪ That says I'm leaving ♪
♪ 'Cause I've left that girl so many times before ♪
- Don Voltaggio's wife, Eileen, designed the logo
that Jake was just talking about.
At the time, the two lived in an aquamarine,
pastel-colored home.
- There you go.
- They kept their water cooler in a wooden box
that had a zigzag checkerboard pattern.
Eileen used the exterior to create the logo,
and then two years later, she created the teal
and cherry blossom design for Arizona's iconic green iced tea,
inspired by a bottle of perfume
in their son Spencer's coloring books.
Don said, "Pastels had never really been used at that point.
"It was attractive, but more importantly, different."
And there you go.
Is their iced tea particularly better than Snapple?
Arguably, it's like worse.
I mean, the green tea, you know,
they had certain flavors I have like a
sentimental attachment to, but truly,
what was different about it,
the name, the can, and the color.
- The palette, dude.
Tasteful.
- The tasteful palette of Arizona iced tea.
And then, you know, from there,
they were off to the races, another amazing moment.
- It was like the Wild West, man.
Like, teal was just wide open.
- Right.
- Pastels, that palette as a marketing for food,
wide open, wild.
- In the 20th century in America,
that's when the getting was good.
You could come up with an idea like that.
Just like, how about a pastel can?
- Height of the empire, dude.
- Height of the empire.
There were still big chunks of untouched territory.
- Free real estate.
(laughing)
Every color, you know,
you're not going to discover like a new color now.
I mean, of course, there's still visual trends
and things like that, but it's like, yeah,
I'm sorry, but like, you know,
some hipster brand in Silver Lake
that uses a new typeface
and a slightly different like matte printed.
You're going to come up with something original.
I'm not saying you can't be original,
but these were big fat ideas there for the taking.
A pastel tall boy can.
That's a big fat idea.
That's a billion dollar idea.
- Now when I see like a kind of cannily designed,
no pun intended, can of water
or something like liquid death,
just like, get the hell out of here.
- I mean, liquid death is doing pretty well.
For anybody who doesn't know,
liquid death is a canned water company
that also they make the cans look like beer cans.
So by calling it liquid death,
they use kind of almost like a metal,
like heavy metal type iconography.
My understanding, the way somebody first explained it to me,
which I thought was kind of a sweet idea
was for people who don't drink,
you know, if you're standing around at a bar
and everybody's holding a can of beer or a bottle of beer,
and then you're just holding a cup of water,
you might feel like outsider.
But if you're holding a can that says liquid death
and has like some crazy skulls and (beep) on it,
then you feel more like I'm doing the same thing
as everybody else, which I thought was like a novel idea.
- Okay, okay.
There's new terrain in the water space.
- Yeah, I mean, how big is that market?
Like, and then I guess, obviously,
I don't know if you can exclusively build a water brand.
- Although, I mean, you're also--
- You're calling it bull (beep)
- I'm calling it bull (beep)
because really what you're saying is
I want to fit in and sort of really not sort of
project my sobriety,
except I'm going to carry around a can
that's going to demand people ask me what it is,
and that I have to explain to them that I'm drinking water
and why am I drinking water.
You're so much safer just getting a club soda.
- Well, first of all, there's no way
that the whole idea of this brand is just for sober people.
I just think that's too,
I mean, obviously there's a lot of sober people
and people who don't want to drink on occasion,
but yeah, they must also just think
that there's a market space for just canned water
that seems like a little bit more upscale.
'Cause actually I will say as somebody
who's drunk some liquid death in my life,
and not that long ago,
I was driving out to the desert
with some of my Jersey boys who were in town,
none of whom were aware of this brand.
I was aware of it because I feel like very early on
they started having it backstage at a music festival.
So we were driving and we stopped at a rest stop
out in the desert.
Everybody wanted a water.
I tend to avoid plastic bottles when I can.
And also I like that it feels like colder
in a metal heli container.
So I grabbed a liquid death and it actually was,
everybody looked at me like, wait, wait, wait,
what is that?
Is that a beer?
And it wasn't even a joke
'cause it looks so much like a beer.
And then I was driving.
So of course I had to say, yes, it's a beer,
but you know, road soda boys.
And eventually I had to say, it's water.
And they said, why?
I said, I don't, I think it's for sober people.
And they said, are you sober?
I said, I don't know, I drink sometimes.
I don't know.
Yeah, it created a whole discussion.
And so I was actually having it.
- I got us off on a wild tangent.
Let's get back to Arizona.
- Yeah, let's get back to, let's get back to Arizona.
- So I feel like we skipped over a crucial thing though.
- Yeah.
- So when did this product come out? '92?
- Yeah, roughly.
- To save money, Arizona Beverages did not spend
on marketing or advertising.
Voltaggio purchased his own fleet of trucks
to save on transportation
and modernize production facilities
to go from producing 150 cans per minute
to 1500 per minute.
That's what we got to ask him about.
And thin down the aluminum cans
to increase profit margins.
The big can is still just 99 cents.
- Yeah, 40% less aluminum on those big cans.
- Voltaggio said recently about the price,
I'm committed to the 99 cent price.
When things go against you, you tighten your belt.
I don't want to do what the bread guys
and the gas guys, never what else is doing.
Consumers don't need another price increase
from a guy like me.
Your company has to deal with cost increases,
but your customers have to deal with cost increases too.
And if you break their back, nobody wins.
So he's really like the Fugazi of iced tea.
- Yeah, frozen.
- Fugazi was like, our shows are $5
and they maintain that price for years.
- Although they kind of priced themselves out of existence
because I don't know enough about
the late period Fugazi story,
but they're between a rock and a hard place now
because if Fugazi went on tour now,
even if they, nothing's fancy,
but just they would need to pay their crew
and they would need to,
Fugazi would actually have to spend
hundreds of thousands of dollars,
even just to go play to the people
who want to see them.
It's the Fugazi paradox.
- I went to Fugazi show in like '98,
definitely more than $5.
- Oh, really?
- Yes.
- Is this just like a myth?
- I bet that was like '88 to like '93 or something.
- I always hear people talk about Fugazi
freezing their prices.
This is news to me.
- I saw them at the Crystal Ballroom
and I'm going to guess '98, '99.
Not a great venue for them.
Although of course, Ian McKay did stop the show to break up
some like moshing that was happening.
Some like late Portland hippie moshing.
Hold on!
And the show was definitely more than $5.
- Interesting, 'cause I really thought
that they did the price.
It'd be funny to get Ian McKay on the show
and just like, "So what's up with the $5 thing?"
And he's like, "A piece of marketing
"and there's nothing more to it."
And we're like, "Oh, but you're like famously
"like this, you know, really like ethical guy."
And he's like, "No, what I am is a businessman."
And here's the thing.
The idea of a punk band like Fugazi
freezing their tickets at $5,
well that makes a lot of sense in terms of our story.
And I like that story being out there.
I like the way it makes us look
and I like the way it sounds.
Now, when I put my businessman hat on,
how much do I want to charge for tickets?
I want to charge $500 a ticket.
And you know what?
I get to live in both worlds.
People show up, the tickets cost more than $5.
Oh, (beep) I don't know what happened.
Must have been the venue, whatever.
But never forget that Fugazi froze their prices.
Is that what's happening?
- Damn.
- There's no way that's happening.
I think Fugazi doesn't tour because they can't.
- They don't tour 'cause they're not a band.
I think they broke up.
I've heard they've gotten like--
- Because of the $5.
- This could be totally wrong.
They've gotten huge offers to play like Coachella and stuff.
- That would make sense.
- You know, like massive money to like reunite.
- Right, yeah, 'cause I guess they could take that money
without breaking their promise.
You know what Fugazi needs to put on a show
without having to betray their fans is a corporate sponsor
because then--
- Here we go.
- And I'm thinking maybe a certain Voltaggio-owned corporation.
If Arizona Ice-T puts on like a free show,
how about a free concert in Central Park, Fugazi?
- Fugazi, this rules.
- Don Voltaggio gives them $10 million,
chump change for him.
Ian and the boys--
- 10 million.
- Get the money that they love and then they feel like,
you know, this is worth getting out of bed for
and the fans get a free show.
And then when people say, "But hold on, guys.
"How could you team up with a corporation?"
And he'll say, "How dare you?
"Arizona Ice-T is the Fugazi of Ice-T."
And they'll be like, "Fair enough.
"This is airtight."
- Plus, I mean, you couldn't pair up with the more innocuous
sort of low-impact corporation than Arizona Ice-T.
- Yeah, I mean, it's not like Coca-Cola.
- They're shipping cans of liquid across continents
in semi-trucks, so they're consuming a lot of resources.
But I mean, it's not some insidious corporation.
- I gotta point out, though, that in 2017,
their revenue, Arizona Ice-T's revenue,
was $3 billion.
- Ayo!
How the hell--
- In the year 2017, that was their--
- This is one of these classic time crisis conversations
where it was sort of like,
"Wait, Kind Bar is worth like $9 billion?
"Like, what the hell?"
Like, Arizona, they sold $3 billion worth of Ice-T
just out of like gas stations across the country?
That's wild.
That's wild. - According to,
so there have been a lot of articles
about how inflation is going up.
Arizona remains the same price.
And according to Forbes, an article from six days ago,
Arizona sells roughly 1 billion 99 cent Ice-T's annually.
- 1 billion?
- Accounting for 25% of its total revenue.
Company's best selling beverage,
though its other offerings like fruit drinks
and energy drinks sell for higher prices, uh-oh,
asterisk to this whole story,
and produce higher margins.
So the core product, the Ice-T, is 99 cents.
But they've got candy, they've got energy drinks,
they've got all sorts of other--
- It's their flagship thing
and they can lose a little money on it
or at least leave some money on the table.
And it's also interesting to think
when they sell a billion,
like, there's probably a lot of,
if you're like a hardcore Arizona Ice-T fan,
it's not crazy that you might drink 100 a year or more.
- I'm thinking daily, dude.
- There's a lot of people out there who might drink 365,
maybe they drink two a day.
So who knows, maybe their core,
the core crew of the Arizona consumer
is like 40 million people.
They got 40 million hardcore people.
Less?
- That'd be like,
that'd be over 10% of the population.
I'm thinking like,
there's like maybe like--
- Five million hardcore.
- Yeah, two, three, four, five million
hardcore Arizona Ice-T drinkers.
But they're only dropping
three, 400 bucks a year.
So respect.
- Wait, so let's say there's
four million hardcore Arizona fans,
each one of them drinks--
- Just say one.
- Okay, so if it's,
if there's one million hardcore Arizona fans
and they each drink 400 a year,
which is a little more than one a day,
which is not crazy.
- Yeah.
- If you love it, it's not crazy.
And it's a great, it's a very cheap beverage.
So that's 400 million right there.
And then you make up the other 600 million
with the more casual,
the more casual Arizona consumer.
Okay, the numbers check out.
- It's a global product too, right?
It's, I know it's in Canada.
I'm sure it's in Europe.
It must be really exotic in Europe.
- So Arizona sells in Canada, Mexico, Panama,
Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean islands.
In Europe, it has established operations offices
in the Netherlands to support its sales
throughout the Western part of the continent.
So yeah, Arizona, I mean, it's,
you know, you can get it everywhere.
- It's also really funny to imagine,
you know, one of their most iconic products
as discussed is their green tea.
And that Arizona green tea
has ginseng and honey in it.
And we were talking about it before,
you know, the famous kind of like cherry blossom branch
and kind of like, it's not over the top,
but like the font that says green tea,
like vaguely seems like vaguely Asian or something.
And just when you take a step back
and you just look at this big jug of sugar water
and you're like, this is a two guys in Brooklyn
started a company called Arizona,
who's now making this like Asian branded product
that's green tea with ginseng and honey.
Also, how funny is it that's ginseng?
Ginseng was like the hot, like kind of supplement
of the nineties, like it was supposed to
be kind of like a brain booster.
And I'm willing to believe it does in certain doses.
I mean, maybe somebody has to do a studies,
like if you drink Arizona green tea every day,
are you sharper?
Can you perform better?
Is your memory better?
It's a great looking can.
I mean, I gotta say.
It's beautiful.
Again, that teal with the pink,
I'm seeing it 79 cents at Target right now,
89 cents at Bonds.
Oh, under 99 cents.
Yeah.
Did you buy in bulk?
Like maybe that's what it is.
I feel like I see, I always see like,
like someone will take a picture of like a convenience store
where somebody, the store owners put like a $2,199 sticker
over the 99 cents.
You know what I'm talking about?
Right.
I guess that's their prerogative.
I don't know.
I'm sure the Voltagios will have thoughts.
Oh yeah.
Don Voltaggio doesn't like that.
And you know, there's also,
we don't have to get all into it,
but sad to say eventually Farolito and Voltaggio parted ways.
It got a little bit nasty.
He had to buy out Farolito, but you know,
this could be a good founder type movie.
Voltaggio didn't want to sell.
Farolito was like, let's get bigger.
We can sell to some multinational corporation.
Don Voltaggio kind of, he said,
I've seen what large companies have done to entrepreneurial companies.
Sometimes they do well, but most times not.
They take the entrepreneur spirit,
throw it in the garbage and fold it into their corporate philosophy.
Respect, dude.
Respect to Voltaggio.
Seems like a real one.
I am a patient boy
I wait, I wait, I wait, I wait
My time, the water's gotta drain
Everybody's moving, everybody's moving
Everybody's moving, moving, moving, moving
Please don't leave me to remain
All the way from the top of the tower
I'm getting the fire
All over the town
I'm on the party
Sitting outside of town
Everybody's always down
She's right
Because they can't get up
Come on and get up
All right, I've mentioned on the program recently
that not that long ago, I was driving with Rashida
and we were talking about the song "Dr. Feelgood"
or I was like singing it
and she said, "That's a great song."
And I've been thinking about it since then.
Just seemed like she's not particularly a rocker,
definitely prefers R&B.
And I thought it's worth kind of getting into
because on the show we talked about Motley Crue a lot recently
and we're kind of blown away at the popularity of "Kickstart My Heart"
and about the fact that low-key, Motley Crue
seems to be one of the biggest bands in America
even though, as Jake often points out,
they don't have the catalog of "Guns N' Roses"
or, I don't know, "Deaf Leopard."
Far from it.
But anyway, we're going to get Rashida on the phone real quick
to talk about the song "Dr. Feelgood."
Now, let's go to the Time Crisis Hotline.
[phone ringing]
He's the one they call Dr. Feelgood.
He's all right.
Are you singing my song?
Rashida Jones, welcome to Time Crisis.
Thank you. Happy to be back.
It's been a while. Hi, everyone.
Hey.
Real quick question.
Did you ever have a period of your life
where you drank a lot of 99-cent cans of Arizona iced tea?
No, because I--
No, I didn't really mess with caffeine until I got to college
and it was about Snapple then.
The other one.
When did Arizona iced tea come out?
'92.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, I think I just missed that.
Did they have fun little quotes on the can?
Like Snapple?
That actually was Nantucket--
No.
Wasn't that Nantucket Nectar?
No, that was Snapple.
Snapple had facts.
Snapple had Snapple facts.
Facts, yeah.
Didn't Nantucket Nectar have something in their inside of a can?
I think they tried to piggyback off Snapple and they had little quotes.
But yeah, it's funny.
It's like Snapple presented itself as kind of like old-fashioned and cozy
and then Arizona was like this southwestern, futuristic--
Bad boy.
--New York brand.
Beautiful palette. Teal.
But you know what their classic green tea can look like?
Yeah, I've seen the packaging.
I've seen women also dress like the packaging.
Have you guys seen that?
Yes, because you can get like sweatsuits that look like it now.
Yeah, I think but also unintentionally women do tend to dabble in that color palette.
Well, as you probably know, it was Don Voltaggio's wife, Eileen,
who designed the can.
Wow, I did not know that.
Bringing together the masculine and the feminine spirit together
into one product that made a lot of money for that family.
Gorgeous.
All right, but you're here for a segment.
What is it that you love so much about the song "Dr. Feelgood"?
Okay, first of all, let me say it's not like I'm writing hard for "Dr. Feelgood"
on like a daily basis, like talking about it.
If you ask me right now, I don't even know who sings it.
Wait, do you truly have no idea who sings it?
Can you sing it for us right now?
♪ Da-da-da, Dr. Feelgood ♪
Okay, so we're talking about the same song.
Yeah, but I have like a couple of ideas swirling in my head,
but Ezra said, "Wow, you like that song?"
I was like, "Yeah, that song is good."
Like that's like a funky, funky-ass song.
So it's not like I--
Yeah, I'm going to quibble with you on the term "funky," but okay.
It's got a good, like, feel to it.
Wait, throw it on for a second, Matt.
We always need to listen to it for a second.
It's got a good hard rock groove.
♪
Very White Zombie here.
♪ Da-da-da-da-da-da ♪
White Zombie just ripped this off.
Yeah.
♪
It's kind of harder than I expected.
Very--
I think that that fades away.
Yeah, it kicks into another groove.
Yeah.
I think it does.
I think "funky" is actually in a totally appropriate term for what it's about to come off.
♪
Long intro.
♪
Okay, you know, it is funky. You're right.
It's funky!
Those seven chords.
♪
♪ Raps held you in a second hand ♪
♪ Feels like Hollywood ♪
♪ Got you by seven primal claims ♪
♪ Trade a little powder goods ♪
♪ Digs out you to hear the world again ♪
You know who the artist is now that you're hearing it?
Very distinctive vocalist.
Poison?
Close.
It's not Poison.
Very close.
Visually very close.
Another bleach blonde singer.
Is it the same artist as Cherry Pie?
Wow, you--
No, but again--
Wait, that's Warrant, right?
Yeah, you're in the right universe here.
These guys were the kind of progenitors to Poison and Warrant.
They started like five years early.
Okay.
It's not Motley Crue?
It is Motley Crue.
There it is.
Okay, okay.
Okay, cool.
Is that the Tommy Lee band?
Lee band? Yes. Vince Neil.
Notes are pretty jazzy. That's pretty jazz.
I get what you mean. Yeah, true.
Dare I say like a Quincy Jones horn arrangement?
Chill.
No, I can see like...
Jerry Hay horn arrangement, but yes.
Oh, maybe, yeah, right. Maybe a Jerry Hay horn arrangement.
I'm not trolling. That's not a crazy thing to say.
No, no, no. I like it.
It sounds so different.
Can I just say the verse sounds a lot like, I don't know,
Too Hard to Handle, is that what it's called? That Black Crow song?
Oh, which is originally Otis Redding.
Oh, yeah.
My mom too hot to handle, and there's a man.
Very similar to that.
Is anyone getting a bit of a walk this way Aerosmith vibe from this song?
Oh yeah, totally.
That call. Yes.
But see, I guess what was interesting to me about the fact that you
particularly said you like this song is that like, I just don't think you like,
maybe I'm wrong, but that you like this era or that genre of music.
Like, I feel like, didn't you recently say like you didn't really particularly
like any Guns N' Roses songs?
Not really my thing.
No, but like, but like I mess with like Whitesnake.
I know that's the cheesier version of this.
Right. But like that, I like.
Like the power ballad?
Like Frank Ocean, yeah.
And is this love?
That's a good song.
Yeah, I know what you mean.
But those are power ballads like this is just a hard rocker.
So you don't like Welcome to the Jungle by Guns N' Roses.
It's not for me. I understand it, but it's not.
I'm not never putting that on alone ever.
Same here. It's not as funky as Dr.
Feelgood. It's not funky.
That's just hard rock.
I think this is trying to target funky.
This is I'm not like wrong about this.
Like it wants to be that a bit, right?
No, you make a good point.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
It is almost like he's scatting.
Yeah.
Is this definitely I feel different than Guns N' Roses.
Like, yeah, it's is.
But this is specific, this song.
Can we do a quick number crunch?
There might be come up empty.
But has there ever been kind of like a funky cover of Dr. Feelgood?
That's what I was going to ask, because I bet you could interpret this in a way
where like you wouldn't even be a question that it was funky.
That'd be interesting.
You just like found out that like in like the late 90s,
D'Angelo busted it out in concert all the time.
That's so sick.
Yeah, because Tommy Lee on drums is not bringing the funk.
No, no, he's bringing very rigid hard rock.
Yeah. It's the riff is funky.
It's it's Mick Mars.
It's Mick.
Old ass Mick Mars returning back to his 1960s roots.
Can I get a tiny bit of like TC research context?
Like did this was this song like a top 20, a top 10?
Big hit. Big hit. Oh yeah, big hit.
Yeah. No. Yeah.
It a year on that.
This came out in 1989, kind of later than I would have expected.
What's on the charts with it?
Like, is it like part of a movement or is it like an outlier?
No, no, it's not an outlier.
It's like Skid Row was really big at this point. Right.
So you're not drinking Arizona iced tea to the song.
We know that. No, no, not Arizona.
You're drinking some midnight drag.
It's it's it's the tail end of like hair of the hair metal.
You know, it's full MTV saturation.
Really like the last gasp hair metal.
Well, really, there's like two years left of hair metal, to be honest.
But like I bought this on tape, this album at the Danbury
Fair Mall in Danbury, Connecticut, and was amped on it.
And actually, funny tie in the cover, I found very appealing
because it was just teal bathroom tile.
It's Dr.
Feel good logo with just this like kind of ratty ass like teal bath,
like public bathroom tile.
I really feel a deep connection to teal and salmon.
It's just like I just love those colors.
When I saw Arizona iced tea in 92, I was like, I feel a connection to this.
Just on an aesthetic level.
Sorry, I said, I felt like
that was like a minty green on Arizona iced tea.
Wait, now I got to look.
Are we going to quibble minty green teal?
I mean, oh, that's a totally different color.
I will put for a whole week.
Oh, yeah, you're right.
Minty green is is teal has more blue in it.
There are a certain segment of the rainbow.
Yes. Of the spectrum.
I know they're not that far off.
Really? It's a color family.
To me, teal and minty green are adjacent to each other.
They're not.
Teal is closer to like a brighter blue.
It's not a pastel teal, is it?
I think it's really more of a seafoam, personally.
Seafoam, yes.
That's that's how I think of it.
Oh, I see.
So, yeah, teal is kind of blue.
OK, but you know what?
They're both cool colors, right?
Yeah. Like they're not rich.
They're in the turquoise family.
If you say green, I think of like Kelly green.
I think of like forest green.
Seafoam. I think seafoam is what we're talking about.
And we're talking about the like the like the tasteful
like cherry blossom design or like the 80s one with the checkers.
We're talking about they're both they're both iconic.
Cherry blossoms, a similar palette as the Dr.
Feelgood cover.
Yes, that's true.
That's where I'm going.
Whatever you want to call it.
Yeah. And then the checkered one is more like a blue teal.
Yeah.
In 1989. Yeah.
Yeah. Go ahead.
Yeah. '89 Dr.
Feelgood peaks at number six on the US Hot 100.
And just to set in context, other songs that were big that year.
We're talking Blame It on the Rain, Milli Vanilli,
Love Shack, B-52s, We Didn't Start the Fire, Billy Joel, Bust a Move,
Young MC, Back to Life, Soul to Soul.
Whoa. So we're kind of yeah, we're in this this emerging New Jack swing.
Honestly, that sounds to me like a fun, funky year.
It feels very like theme parky that year.
Like that all feels like different rides at theme parks.
Love Shack, Bust a Move, Dr. Feelgood.
Yeah, I can see like a weird connection between all of them.
Blame It on the Rain.
That's a pretty wild combination of groups, I got to say.
Fascinating time.
B-52s, you got your Athens, Georgia, kind of like old school college rock.
No, but it's love, which was huge and it was universal.
And it wasn't like there was no old school.
Everybody loved that song.
I know. But the group.
Right. The group had these weird roots.
Right. Kitchy.
Milli Vanilli, just absolutely psychotic.
They need to make a Milli Vanilli movie, by the way.
Yeah. This is MTV.
All these bands, no matter how disparate the sound,
are all so like iconic TV ready at a time.
You know, like it is all of them, which is interesting.
Yeah. MTV ruled then.
Yeah. Bad music, but cool network.
Just also you could just watch it all day.
Like, is there anything you could watch?
I guess that's what people do on social media.
But there's like nothing you could watch all day now.
You know, social media makes people depressed.
Nineteen eighty nine MTV made people feel good.
I'm getting pumped up.
Dr. Choga made them Dr.
Feelgood. Thanks for coming on the show.
I have an idea for the next time you come on a segment that I'd be interested in
your top five rock songs of all time.
Can Jake do top five R&B, hip hop?
Oh, that's absolutely.
That's a great call. We'd love to.
All right. We'll do that in a couple episodes.
Great. I'm in love this.
All right. Thanks for coming on the show.
That was a Dr.
Feelgood mega fan, Rashida Jones.
Great. Thanks so much.
Thank you. Bye. Bye.
Bye. I think that was her 11th appearance on this show.
OK. I'm not mistaken.
The lyrics to this are pretty like Springsteen.
Rat tail Jimmy is a second and hood deals out of Hollywood.
Got a five Chevy primered flames traded for some powdered goods.
Jigsaw Jimmy. He's running a gang.
But I hear he's doing OK.
Got a cozy little job, sells the Mexican mob packages of candy cane.
Well, the one that called Dr.
Feelgood. That's early, early Bruce Springs.
That's like a park.
Bruce Springs cops on the corner.
Well, ignore somebody's getting paid.
Jimmy's got it wired.
Laws for hire got it made in the shade.
So he's like grabbing the cops.
Got a little hideaway.
Does business all day.
But at night he's always found selling sugar to the sweet people on the street.
Call this Jimmy's town.
Wow. All right.
This is a great song.
You know, actually, now I'm suddenly having a vision, too.
We could very easily put together a late 80s
L.A. crime slash drug dealing playlist.
We'd have West L.A. fade away from a dude.
Grateful dead moving items for the mob.
Yeah, man. Dr.
Feelgood. Then you get to like N.W.A.
Dude. And Mr.
Brownstone.
Mm. G and R.
Dude, you know, it's interesting.
Dr. Feelgood songwriters, Mick Mars, Nikki Sixx.
That's it. That's it.
Neil and Lee not credited.
That's fascinating.
It was Mars and Sixx or the Lennon McCartney of Mollie Crew.
I just assumed Vince Neil wrote these lyrics.
Maybe it's Mick Mars with his like deeper roots into like 60s rock
that he was like, yeah, I want to tell a story.
I want to do like a Bob Dylan thing on this song.
I love the thing about Vince Neil, like memorizing these lyrics.
Just like right down to me,
writing him out in his like spiral ring book.
Cops on the corner always ignore somebody's getting paid.
What's the next line?
Oh, Jimmy's got a wide.
All eyes for hire.
Got a maid in the shade.
He's the one that got Dr.
Feelgood.
Vince, are you off book, man?
We got a gig next week.
Dude, we're debuting these songs at the Roxy next week.
Dude, are you off book?
I almost got it.
Yeah, it's also such a like this is exactly the type
of song that somebody messes up at karaoke.
Is that the sound of it?
Try it because he's the one that called Dr.
Feelgood.
Oh, man.
Looking for a Chateau.
21 rooms, but one will do.
Looking for a Chateau.
21 rooms, but one will do.
I don't want to buy it.
I just want to rent it for an hour or two.
Let's go to our next guest.
I know people have been waiting for us to weigh in on the Oscars,
unlike a lot of the lying news media who wants to jump in
with the misinformation day of before the dust is settled.
Everybody's talking about Will Smith and Chris Rock.
Coda, everybody's talking about these things before they even have time
to properly analyze what happened at the Oscars.
You don't even know for sure if what one actually won.
You can only say for certain a few months later.
Like now we can look up.
Did Coda win best picture?
It seems like it's stuck.
But, you know, they had that whole moonlight thing.
So the idea that you would report about the Oscars
the day of or even the week or the month of makes absolutely no sense
from a journalistic integrity point of view,
which is what we have here on Time Crisis and friend of the show, Daniel Ralston,
had a gig as a bartender at this year's Oscars.
So now that it feels appropriate now that we're what, five or six weeks out,
we thought we would actually get him on to talk about bartending at the Oscars
and maybe give us a sense of what happened.
Now let's go to the Time Crisis hotline.
Hey, guys.
Welcome back to the show.
Oh, thank you so much.
OK, first, we got to start out with two questions.
One, are you a fan of Arizona iced tea in the 99 cent can?
No, definitely not.
Oh, like it sounds like you actively dislike it.
Snapple guy.
Well, when I lived in New York about 10 years ago,
do you remember the I heart big cans campaign?
Wait, that was their campaign?
No, I think just in general, I associate Arizona iced tea
with like a big, sugary, disgusting can of something from 7-Eleven.
Oh, yeah, you're right.
If it's not their campaign, who else?
What other?
So someone's promoting big cans.
Yeah, they made T-shirts and tote bags that said, I love big cans.
And the I in big was a Arizona can.
OK, so this is a little bit of a call.
Yeah. Call back to the early days.
Sorry, guys.
Yeah, because they're kind of a horny brand.
No, that's good to know.
I heard big cans.
OK, so you're not a fan of Arizona iced tea.
Are you a fan of the song Dr. Feelgood?
No, can't say that I am.
0 for 2.
Sorry. OK.
No, no. All right. All right.
Thanks for calling in, Daniel.
All right. I'll stop talking to you later.
Anyway, thanks for calling in.
All right.
So we want to get a scene report from this year's Oscars.
Tell us about your experience in your gig.
Sure. Well, I bartend for a living.
I work at a club downtown in L.A.,
but occasionally I do freelance bartending gigs at private events.
There's a company that sort of like has a collection of bartenders
and we go work different events.
And I got asked if I wanted to work the Oscars.
And I said, yes, it's a very taxing bartending gig to take on
because it's a very long day and there's a ton of work to do.
Well, yes. So, like, what time are you getting there?
930 in the morning for covid testing.
Oh, wow. Is it on you to like help set up
or you're like when you're kind of a freelance bartender, it's like
somebody else, the company sets up the bar and you just they slot you in.
That's a good question.
It definitely changes from job to job, but it's something like this.
They have everything set up because it's like sponsored. Right.
Do you get there like an hour early to familiarize yourself
with the lay of the land?
Because like when it's stressful and there's like a million people waiting
and getting impatient, like you can't be like, oh, hold on.
I think that we have that over here.
Like, how do you like get ready?
Do you want me to get deep into the weeds?
I like bargaining and setting up a bar. Yeah. Yeah.
There are a couple of things I always look for in front of me.
I need to make sure I have ice and a sink.
Those are the first two things.
And then I start assessing what we have at an event like that.
Like the Oscars, I assume most people are going to be drinking champagne.
So I'll start there and make sure it's cold.
Make sure I have glassware.
Then I move on from there.
Make sure there's beer.
Find out if there's any special requests.
There's usually like somebody kind of overseeing it.
But in this case, I walked into a bar that was basically already set up for me.
And yeah, I ended up sort of in front of a big TV
bartending and the TV is showing the Oscars.
Were the limes already sliced? Yes.
OK. And where exactly is this bar?
Oscars take place at what's it?
Is it the Kodak Theater?
Dolby Theater. Dolby Theater.
And so, yeah, where are you in the building?
The setup is sort of weird.
Like you go in on the first floor and there's a big bar
like you can go there for any show. You'll see it.
There's a bar off to the left that's called like the Dolby Lounge.
And they kind of use it for I don't know, like VIP members
who like maybe belong to the Dolby Theater.
Dolby Theater does a lot of like Broadway shows and stuff like that.
They come to L.A. and they perform at the Dolby Theater. Right.
But it's in such a weird part of L.A.
It's like across the street from Jimmy Kimmel.
And it's like on like the worst part.
It's in like the worst part of Hollywood.
It's a great part of Hollywood.
Hollywood and Highland area.
Strange place. Very strange place.
Like you walk outside to like get a soda or something.
And there's like a Spider-Man guy dressed like Spider-Man
taking pictures with people.
And then there's like 100 Instagram influencers
like having pictures taken of them.
It's a very strange spot. Right.
It's kind of like L.A.'s Times Square, but like
just without the kind of like grand gravitas.
Yeah. Without the grandeur.
Everybody comes to Hollywood.
They want to make it in the neighborhood.
They like the smell of it in Hollywood.
How could it hurt you when it looks so good?
Shine your light now.
This time it's got to be good.
We'll get it back now.
Yeah.
Cause you're in Hollywood.
Yeah.
All right. So you're posted up and so you're the bartender who is
like all the people at the Oscars, they step out for a commercial break
and they want to drink. They're coming to your bar.
No, they're coming to one of a few different bars.
Oh, I see. But mine had a big TV, which I guess was a big draw for people.
Like they can still keep track of what's going on.
Mm hmm. It's like the green room when you're at a concert
and then like there's a video feed of the concert that's happening.
Right. And you can watch it in the green room if you want.
Always a fun vibe.
Just tinnily blasting off of the TV speakers.
Or if you go see like a stadium rock show and they have it on the TV's
hot dogs. Love it.
So you get there at nine thirty, you COVID test.
What time do you start serving drinks?
I guess it was like three o'clock.
So what are you doing in those six hours?
It's a lot of hurry up and wait.
Like there's places to be and people to meet with.
And then, yeah, I guess it was sort of
there was like two straight hours from like when people were first coming in,
where it was very busy and then it would die down and then it would get busy again.
And then, yeah, I don't mean to skip to the end,
but it was sort of a thing where like I I worked the job
just like I work a lot of other different jobs.
And I guess sort of the reason we're talking about this is I tweeted
about going about working the Oscars.
And most of my tweets get like 15 likes.
And I woke up after posting about the Oscars to find that like I had a crazy
viral tweet that had like a half a million likes on it.
It was very much like half a million likes.
Well, I don't know. It's like that.
Was that the one where you were where you were like people stopped drinking
after the slap or?
Yeah. And I said that some celebrities were nice by name,
which I got in trouble for and I shouldn't have done.
But then I also posted sort of like a blind item thing about a celebrity couple
who wanted to smoke by the dumpsters.
And that also went viral, weirdly, like to the same level.
I guess it ended up on a couple of like gossip Instagram accounts
that are really popular because people love to like try to decode a blind item.
Yeah. And it was sort of just a weird experience to like, yeah,
being in the room that night was sort of strange.
Like people reacted the way I guess everybody has.
Like I don't want to interrupt you, Daniel.
Before we get to the slap, I really do.
I would love to know, do people order any difficult drinks?
Oh, that's a great question.
You know, I'll occasionally I think I remember maybe that night
somebody asked me for a cure royale.
Oh, is that a champagne based drink?
Champagne and Chambord is Chambord something you would have at a bar like this?
No, I have it at my normal bar where I work all the time,
but not at something like this.
That's a pretty that's a pretty odd request.
Were they disappointed?
No, they were fine.
It's all free booze. They're pretty happy.
Let me get an Arizona green tea with ginseng, honey and champagne.
That probably tastes pretty good.
Actually, we got to come up with a name for that.
I've never seen Arizona in a cocktail that has not crossed my transom yet.
Not yet.
It's an Arizona green tea with champagne.
So you have this tweet that goes crazy viral.
And right now I'm looking at a New York Post article that says
Will Smith slap stop stars from drinking booze, Colin Oscars bartender.
And the first sentence, Hollywood's elite were shocked into a state of sobriety
after Will Smith spectacularly slapped Chris Rock
at the Academy Awards on Sunday night.
Daniel Ralston, who was serving drinks at the event,
reportedly took to Twitter on Monday.
Wait, so first of all, Twitter
took to Twitter is such a funny phrase, but something about the way
this is phrased makes it seem like you reportedly took to Twitter.
Like, yeah, you guys are reporting that he took to Twitter.
What do you mean?
Like, it's like allegedly Daniel Ralston tweeted this, writing
bartender, the Oscars, everybody stopped drinking after the slap.
The tweet, which was seen by the independent, has now been deleted.
Oh, maybe that's why they have to say you reportedly took to Twitter.
Fascinating the way this works.
So, yeah, everybody stopped drinking.
A state of sobriety.
And certainly like that is not in any way what I was trying to convey.
By saying that, I was just saying, like, people kind of chilled out.
Like that was it.
It wasn't really like I was trying to say that there was this moment in the room.
But when my friend Pat sent me that article in The New York Post,
I was just like, I don't even understand a single word of this
or how I have anything to do with this.
And there was a photo of you, right?
Yeah. It was a photo of you in The New York Post.
Yeah, they took my Twitter photo.
Has either Will Smith or Chris Rock reached out?
No, not yet. Not yet.
OK, not not a very classy move on either one of their parts.
Well, I don't want to get you in more trouble.
We don't need to know the gossip about who's smoking by the dumpsters
and who's nice and who's not.
But when you say you got in trouble and you deleted the tweet,
is this basically just like somebody who works at the bartending company?
Just like, come on, man, no tweets.
And you're just like, oh, yeah, I'm sorry,
because it's not like you spilled the beans about anything.
It's not like you almost hit it perfectly on the head.
Yeah, that's exactly what happened.
Just like, come on, bro. No tweets.
And you're like, my bad.
Not even that much.
Actually, the guy who reached out to me, my manager was like,
I'm literally not even on social media.
I have no idea what this is.
Can you just take down the tweet?
I was like, yeah, sure. OK, great.
That's what you hope, because you wrote such like a kind of like dry,
factual thing.
It's actually it's interesting because it's The New York Post is the one
who kind of started using this like more florid language,
like turn it into a thing
like it would be pretty wild if you got on Twitter and you said,
hey, guys, Oscar's bartender here.
I want to tell you that Hollywood's elite were shocked
into a state of sobriety after Will Smith spectacularly slapped Chris Rock.
That's just what I observed.
The mood shifted.
It was insane.
The anger, the disgust.
I mean, I couldn't give these people a drink at that point.
Yeah. You know. Anyway.
All right. So it sounds like you got a pretty chill manager.
Yeah. Shout out to him.
OK, so I won't make you say it because I don't want you to get in trouble
with your manager again.
But as I read more in The New York Post article,
it says that in a second deleted tweet, Ralston reportedly wrote
that the nicest celebrities of the night were
and. But I guess I can't ask you about that.
Can we talk about celebrities?
But like we beep their names, you know what I mean?
I don't care. As long as you beep it, I don't care.
Well, then you're back to the blind.
Thumbs up. Yeah. OK.
This gossip rag of a radio show that we have going on.
I know, guys. It's so sordid.
I had no idea.
Who are you most psyched to see?
Oh, I got that for sure.
From a distance, I saw.
I thought that was cool.
Like, how about how about come up to the bar and be like,
hey there, partner, you got a sarsaparilla?
He was the one you were most excited to see.
He just seemed like the chillest guy, actually.
Like ordering a drink, all that stuff seemed like a normal guy.
Well, there you have it, folks.
This is the Time Crisis Oscars 2022 special
bringing you the insight that you're not going to get
in the in the five weeks of coverage from the mainstream media.
Sorry. I was curious if you guys have continued the horse meat discussion.
You know what we have? And actually, I finally went to
Hollywood's hottest new restaurant, Horses, just the other night.
And the food was good.
There's no horse meat.
There's horses all over the place.
There's like when they bring you a hot platter,
they put down a horseshoe on your table and put the hot platter on top of it.
By the bathroom, there's like a projected animation of a horse running.
So there's all this horse stuff, just no horse meat.
Have you had horse meat, Daniel?
No, but I'm sure you've been, Ezra,
I'm sure you've been privy to maybe like a VIP dining experience before.
I wonder if maybe Horses has like a table in the back
by the chef where they'll serve you horse meat.
That's a great question, because I think there is a private room.
And you know what? At one point, the party I was with,
they were asking about the pastas there.
I think there were two pastas on the menu.
And then the waitress said, you know, there's one off menu one,
which I highly recommend.
And I wink. I should have asked her what else is off menu at this place.
Horse ragu. Maybe a horse ragu.
We're doing the TC Christmas party at the horse's back room.
Let's book it. It's a very hot table.
We might have to book it now.
We got to find out if it's BYOH.
If so, Seinfeld, you're going to have to use some of your connects in Canada.
OK, get some nice, nice steaks.
You know, this narrative that I'm into the horse meat, I just, you know, let's
know. Look, I'm not saying you're into it, but you have connects in Canada.
Do you have connects in Canada?
I mean, I know people in Canada.
That's all I'm saying. OK, fair.
I feel like I mean, I know you were talking about,
you know, crossing paths with restaurateurs and stuff like that
for the horse meat restaurant.
I do run in some of those circles because I work at a fancy bar.
Right. I wonder if a horse meat restaurant would work in Canada.
A horse meat restaurant would work in the desert, like in Joshua Tree,
sort of like a Coachella kind of vibe. Right.
Desert seems more horse appropriate.
Well, yeah, and it could have kind of like that neo hipster
wild west look where it's like a really fancy cowboy hat
with feathers and boots, but it's kind of like a little more aesthetic.
Yeah, that might be a great place to do it, to get started.
Name of the restaurant is America.
Is that a horse with no name connection?
Exactly. You walk in and then there's a big quote over the entryway.
I've been through the desert on a horse with no name.
I love that.
I also feel like Mountain Bruce could write a song about it to help promote it.
There's a horse meat restaurant out in the desert.
The name of the restaurant is America.
The name of the song is America.
The name of the song is America.
But the name of the restaurant is America, too.
Yeah. What if the restaurant?
Oh, how about this? What if the restaurant is just called
They Serve Horses, Don't They?
Oh, damn. Oh my God.
Oh, God.
If you heard that there was a restaurant called
They Serve Horses, Don't They?
Out in the desert, out in like some weird part of Joshua Tree.
I think people would fly out to go there.
Yeah. It's in 29 Palms.
Yeah, it's in 29 Palms.
It's in Landers.
Every night they only seat 18 people.
Oh my God. It's like a high end sushi restaurant.
But also because it's, you know, because for the time being, it's illegal.
I like this.
There used to be a bar.
Didn't remember the name.
I'm like in L.A.
where you walked into like a lot like a laundry room or something.
Good time at Davey Wayne's.
Oh, yeah. People love that bar.
So I feel like there is a version where you'd yeah, you'd say like you'd walk in
and it's and you go, they serve horses, don't they?
And then they go, hmm.
And you go into this back room and it's this menu of all horse meat.
Yeah. Maybe you go in for a stable.
Yeah. You walk through a stable.
They serve horses, don't they?
There is this trend for kind of like weird names in whatever you want to call this.
The kind of like post hipster artisanal food scene.
I went to a restaurant a few weeks ago and they had some, I'm sure, some small batch wine.
I think that was an American wine, maybe from Oregon or Northern California.
And the name of the wine, like the name of the bottle was Say Hi to Your Sister for Me.
This is like a thing.
And also point out that the day I was going to go to the restaurant
and I'd normally not that much of a restaurant person, but with so much talk about
horses and horse meat for unusually for me, I wanted to read up on it.
So I was reading some press about the restaurant horses in the L.A.
Times, which wrote a very positive review, really praised the food
and the atmosphere and the chefs took a little pot shot at the name.
And they said, let's keep it real.
Horses is a terrible name for a restaurant.
And I just remember that that line stuck out to me because I was like,
horses is a great name for a restaurant.
It's interesting because it's a plural noun.
I'm sure we can't be the only ones who have an Internet radio show or podcast
who have discussed multiple times about whether or not horses serves horse meat.
So it gets the people talking, asking questions.
So I don't know the L.A.
Times is on about. I think horses is a great name for a restaurant.
I will say that they they serve horses, don't they?
Is a better way better. Yeah.
But horses is a pretty is pretty good.
So the horse meat restaurant is either going to be called America
or it's going to be a full sentence.
Yeah, or no.
But actually, this would this would be in like the neo
post hipster weird syntax era.
The restaurant would either be called they serve horses, don't they?
Or if we went with Jake's idea, rather than just call the restaurant America,
the name of the restaurant be there is a restaurant called America.
Like, truly, this is where things are heading.
This this is my scene report.
Like there's a place in L.A.
People keep talking about it's a burger place called Burgers Never Say Die.
People say it's great.
And actually, I think I've had the burger and it was great.
But that's the name of the place is it's a burger place called Burgers
Never Say Die.
I wonder if the L.A. Times critic would criticize that name.
Like that seems more criticizable than horses.
Yeah, true.
I mean, has any L.A.
Times, has anybody written an article about this?
The names are getting freaky and weird and turning into sentences
and things like that.
Is that a reference? Burgers Never Say Die.
Goonies.
Well, what's the line in Goonies?
Goonies Never Say Die.
Oh, OK. I guess it is.
The burgers are an inanimate object.
Yeah, it's a terrible name.
OK. Yeah.
Well, well, terrible.
The guy says it is not a nod to Goonies Never Say Die.
Even worse.
Yeah. He just wants burgers to never die.
Yeah. They're already dead, man.
They're already dead.
I love that.
It's been put through a meat grinder.
I think this is rolling.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, this is this is what he says.
I was watching Lord of the Rings and I thought, oh, my God.
I do a T-shirt with a wizard and this beam coming out of it.
And under it says Wizards Never Say Die.
I'm never going to this restaurant.
I hate this guy.
I thought burgers never say die.
No, Jake, people love.
I think he started in his house.
I think it's like a cool story.
He was a background.
It's yeah, it was a backyard burger place.
Yeah, come on, Jake.
Backyard burgers.
I like a backyard burger in theory, but I'm not into Lord of the Rings content.
I'm not in and I'm out.
I'm out there.
It's a burger.
Also, it's a burger.
That's going to be Jake's burger restaurant.
It's a burger.
It's it's hard to F that up.
Jake's restaurant will be called.
He's the burger.
They call Dr.
Feel good.
Jake's like phone ring.
Hello.
He's the burger.
They call Dr.
Feel good.
Can I take your order?
He's the burger.
They call Dr.
Feel good burger.
He's the burger.
He's the burger.
The burger now has a gender.
He's the burger.
They call Dr.
Feel good.
He's the burger.
They call Dr.
Feel good.
He's the burger they call.
All right.
It's time for the top five.
Five on iTunes.
We're going to bang through the top five songs this week in 1971.
Why 71?
That's when Voltaggio and and Farolito teamed up to start their beer company,
which eventually morphed into Arizona Iced Tea.
So the number five song, interesting.
An early single from a solo Paul McCartney, 71.
This came out in February 71.
So the breakup of the Beatles is very fresh in the public's mind.
This is Paul McCartney with Another Day/A Woman, O Why.
Every day she takes a morning bath, she wets her hair.
Wraps a towel around her as she's heading for the bedroom chair.
It's just another day.
Cool.
This was a top five single.
Sitting in stockings, stepping into shoes,
dipping in the pocket of her raincoat.
It's just another day.
This song has a really awesome bass line.
From an excellent bassist, Mr. Paul McCartney.
After Get Back came out, I was reading so much
about this era of the end of the Beatles and the post Beatles.
And people really [BLEEP] on this song.
It was successful, but it was seen as like, oh,
this is like this very slight domestic Paul song.
And when you compare the early solo material with Lennon,
I think people felt like this was just so like there wasn't much there.
But now without any of that context and you listen back,
you're like, it is just kind of like sweet and good.
And you can imagine that he was only like a few years out
from Sergeant Pepper at this point.
He might just want to do some simple feel good [BLEEP]
having been part of the Beatles in that like intense late era.
There's some dark stuff in this era too.
Do you know that McCartney song, Beware My Love?
No.
Same era.
Same era.
Is this on Ram or the self-titled?
This is on Ram.
[MUSIC - LENNON, "BEWARE MY LOVE"]
Paul's vibe out of the gates was just like mellow, feel good,
kind of like mid-fi.
Yeah.
Homemade recordings.
Yeah.
And then later, John Lennon turned this around on him
in his famously vicious song, How Do You Sleep?
On the Imagine album, Lennon sang, the only thing you done was yesterday.
And since you've gone, you're just another day.
John, chill.
Chill out, John.
This is a decent song.
The only thing he's done is yesterday?
Come on.
What about Hey Jude, bud?
Conveniently forgetting Hey Jude.
Huh?
All right.
Let's keep moving.
The number four song, '71, Tom Jones, She's a Lady.
She's a lady.
Goddamn.
So this song is written by Paul Anka.
I mean, compared to the Paul, this is like, hyped.
Oh, yeah.
This is sick.
Well, she always knows her place.
She's got style.
She's got grace.
She's a winner.
Paul Anka later rewrote the first verse because he thought it was chauvinistic.
I guess because he said she always knows her place.
When did he rewrite that verse?
He sang it again in 2013.
Interesting.
And the lady is mine.
But she's never in the way.
Always something nice to say.
He wrote this and Sinatra's My Way.
That's so crazy.
Oh, yeah.
Paul Anka, killer.
Wow.
She's OK alone and there's no messing.
She's a lady.
No, no, no.
She's a lady.
Talking about that little lady.
And the lady is mine.
She never asks very much.
This is a cool part.
Yeah, this is very, like, '60s.
It's like wonder-- especially when you think back to this era where for some people, it's
like, oh, I'm going to be a singer.
I'm going to be a singer.
I'm going to be a singer.
I'm going to be a singer.
I'm going to be a singer.
I'm going to be a singer.
I think back in the day I found myself, he was the host on some show like The Voice UK
or something like that.
And at the time I knew somebody who managed somebody who was also on The Voice.
I just remember I was backstage at The Voice UK a couple times just like hanging out.
I just remember kind of seeing Tom Jones and being like, "All right, this guy's like very
charismatic.
He's a great performer.
He's funny.
He's charming."
And like I'm not that familiar with the music.
I know she's a lady and...
What's up, pussycat?
Yeah.
I know Tom, his 90s comeback.
I'm sure it would be kind of like funny and fun.
He sort of had a moment during like Britpop where he was like in a Britpop adjacent figure.
Yeah, exactly.
That's when he had that kind of comeback single.
And what was the song that Carlton would dance to on the Fresh Prince?
It's Not Unusual.
Oh, yeah.
It's Not Unusual.
That's his biggest hit.
Yeah, that's his biggest hit.
The number three song this week, The Temptations, with Just My Imagination Running Away With
Me.
I wouldn't have guessed this was from '71.
I would have guessed earlier.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
I would have guessed '60s.
What is that instrument?
Is that a xylophone?
Sounds like a marimba.
Oh.
Oh, you see, you know what?
This is interesting.
Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, who were like, I guess like kind of in-house writers
from Motown, wrote this in the '60s.
But the psychedelic vibe was so strong, they felt like it was a little played out, so they
sat on it.
Like, I could see, like, maybe they wrote this in like '67, and they were like, "Ah."
And then '68, '69, '70, it's like, I don't know.
And then maybe things had like calmed down or shifted enough that they were like, "F***,
this is a great song."
Timeless.
And actually, before this, The Temptations had been dropping some more like political,
social commentary type songs that weren't doing great.
Their last single only made it to number 33.
That was called "Ungena Za Ulemwengu Unite the World."
So this is like some back to basics s***.
But it's still cool, you know?
It's not cheesy.
This is like perfect music.
That's interesting that they were doing that, because I'm assuming they were on Motown?
Yeah.
Because famously, like, when Marvin Gaye was doing "What's Going On," like, he got a lot
of pushback from the label for the kind of political content of the album.
And that was 1971 that record came out, I think.
Right.
In 1970, they released a whole album called "Psychedelic Shack."
I kind of, yeah, I know the song "Psychedelic Shack."
I'm curious, can you throw on The Temptations' song "Unite the World?"
Whoa!
So this is their single before.
Wait, what the hell was...
Proto-Band Hill 'em, dude!
Yeah, it does sound like Band Hill.
"You really got me..."
"Sick minds, sad sights, never-ending sleepless nights, have been accepted as an everyday
thing.
Why you jumpin', kidnappin'?"
"Will the Russians push the button?"
"No, the Russians don't push the button."
"No, they don't push the button."
Something about the Russians push the button?
That guitar tone is insane.
Yeah.
That's sick.
"People's jobs won't come no bigger than the one we got to throw."
"If we don't give peace a chance, what do you think is gonna happen to me and you?"
Yeah, all right, so you can really see, that song comes out, hits number 33.
Everybody's like, "Let's chill out a little bit."
And then "Just My Imagination," just like a perfect, lovely song.
"Just My Imagination."
That other song is cool.
I don't think it's the political perspective or the production that made it not a hit.
It's just kind of like a weird song.
There's no hook.
No hook.
Yeah, and musically, it sounded a lot like "Can't Get Next To You."
It sort of sounds like that, but actually has a good hook to it.
Wait, what's that?
What's "Can't Get Next To You?"
That one's amazing.
Is that a Temptation song?
Yeah.
You wanna throw that on?
Hold it, hold it.
Listen.
Right, 'cause it also has that kind of hard...
It's the same record.
Hard funk.
It's too bad that boy bands today don't have the vocal variation.
Like now, you get a couple rappers or something, but a boy band should have one falsetto guy
and one super baritone bass.
Yeah.
"Can't Get Next To You."
And a guy with a real raspy voice.
Yeah.
Yeah, their voices don't contrast anymore.
David Ruffin was out of the band at this point, but this is also a group that had a ton of
lineup changes.
But yeah, I would love that.
Just like back at the beginning of the show, BTS, if they just had a guy with a real Rod
Stewart rasp.
I don't remember.
All right, let's get into the number two song this week in 1971.
Well, here you are.
Here we go.
"Marvige," "What's Going On?"
Hey, what's happening?
What's up, brother?
What's up?
This is a big party, man.
Yeah, brother, like a starlight.
Right on.
It's pretty amazing how this song, like, we were just listening to some music from
1970 that still had a little bit of that, like, slightly, like, angry 60s, like, let's
fight, unite the world.
And then this song released January 20, '71.
Everything about it is 70s.
The point of view, the mood, you know what I mean?
It's not like a late 60s fight the power song.
He's making suggestions, but it's already, it's confusion and it's kind of wistful.
It's sad and like, it's a 70s mood, you know?
And it's only early 71, but it's like, it's very distinct to me than any kind of political
big song from the previous few years that I can think of.
You're totally right, man.
What a great observation.
It's not strident.
Yeah, and even like the chords, even like the instrument.
They're all like minor and yeah.
So this is interesting.
So this song was co-written by Marvin Gaye, Al Cleveland and Four Tops member, Rinaldo
O.B. Benson.
And the inspiration came from Benson after the Four Tops tour bus arrived at Berkeley
May 15, 69, and he witnessed police brutality in Berkeley, violence in the city's People's
Park during a protest held by anti-war activists.
And he asked somebody, you know, what's happening here?
And then he just kept thinking, you know, why is all this, you know, what's going on
kind of?
And he wanted to make it a Four Tops song, but the other Four Tops turned him down.
And they said, we don't want to do a protest song.
And he said, no, man, it's a love song.
It's about love and understanding.
I'm not protesting.
I want to know what's going on.
And then in 1970, he gave the song to Marvin Gaye, who added a new melody and changed some
lyrics.
Wow.
So in 69, the Four Tops were like on that Motown tip, that Barry Gordy tip of like no
politics.
Right.
We got to sell records.
And maybe in that extreme political moment of 1969, this kind of like whatever O.B. Benson
was trying to say, like, no, no, no.
I'm going for something slightly different.
Maybe things are too binary then.
Interesting.
The same way that like certain years now feel extremely binary.
And then maybe there's room for nuance in the years that follow.
Yeah.
He was going for like ambivalent, like maybe not ambivalence, but just sort of like, what
is going on?
Yeah.
Well, it's not it's not even asking the question was was had a political valence to it.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
Like you said, like before, like in the 60s, it's like a different tone of song.
I feel like this song being written in 70 probably ends up like helping to set the tone
for the next decade.
Yeah.
Right.
Especially with it having a massive hit, cementing Marvin Gaye as like a kind of like a career
artist.
Like, obviously, he was already massive in the 60s.
But like, I think this entered a whole new chapter of his career and probably how people
saw him.
So totally this probably very large.
He refused to release the song and called it the worst song he'd ever heard in his life.
That's some troll stuff there.
And this is so tight that they released it while Barry Gordy was on vacation.
He didn't have his phone with him.
Yeah.
He came back and was like, yeah, that's like out of a movie like, I told you not to release
that.
And they're just like, Barry, it's a hit.
Well, OK.
All right, then.
I knew it was a good idea.
I knew this was a great song.
This is sort of making to quote Megan S. P sells.
But who's buying?
But I was sort of like imagining a world where like somebody comes to you about the next
Vampire Weekend record.
It's like it's too political.
We can't put this out like what would have to be on that record for somebody to say that.
Right.
No.
Yeah, it would.
It's like unimaginable.
It had to be like pro Trump.
You'd have to do like it would have to be like super right wing.
Were you just making like a Rage Against the Machine album?
And they're like, it's just too political.
Like literally if I wrote a song and it was just like, bro, this song's calling out corporations,
Republicans, hateful people, all this stuff like that, you're going to you're going to
get in some trouble.
No, dude, you can't even.
And I'm like, no, I'm just asking questions.
I'm just asking questions.
I just want to know what's going on.
Yeah, that makes me think of there's like an old Lonely Island thing that was like they
did this kind of like parody song that was basically like a really angry political song,
just like devoid of like any specificity.
Do you remember it's like where he was like, I'm not part of your system.
I just remember that line of like Andy Samberg being really angry, going, I'm not part of
your system.
That's really funny.
The number one song.
This is interesting, you know, considering the various moods that were competing in 1971
to kick off the new decade.
If we accept that the one year is the first year of the decade, debatable, but some people
feel that way.
So we're, you know, we're in April 71.
And you have the Temptations kind of getting back to basics, no politics.
You have Marvin Gaye writing this kind of like moody, bittersweet, well, you're just
like sad song about what's going on.
And then the number one song got Three Dog Night with Joy to the World.
It's a little bit just like some feel good.
Like, I can also see a way in which like people might have heard this in 71 and been like,
all right, man.
Yeah.
Like, enough of this.
Yeah, enough of that 60s.
70s is going to be fun.
All the verses are weird.
It is like Forrest Gump soundtrack.
Yeah.
I think this was on the Forrest Gump soundtrack.
It was definitely a big chill soundtrack.
Pretty iconic vocal performance.
There's a lyric in the third verse I think.
I wonder what it's going to take.
Psyched to get there.
The fishes!
I don't think I've ever heard it to this far in the song.
Really?
I don't think I've ever heard it to this far in the song.
I'm going to know the part I'm talking about.
This little breakdown.
Here we go.
I can't wait for this.
You know I love the ladies.
Love to have my fun.
I'm a highlander flyer and a rainbow rider.
A straight shooting son of a gun.
That whole part sucks.
You know I love the ladies.
Damn.
I'm going to have to go back and watch this.
I'm going to have to go back and watch this.
I'm going to have to go back and watch this.
I'm going to have to go back and watch this.
I'm going to have to go back and watch this.
I'm going to have to go back and watch this.
I'm going to have to go back and watch this.
I'm going to have to go back and watch this.
I'm going to have to go back and watch this.
I'm going to have to go back and watch this.
I'm going to have to go back and watch this.
I'm going to have to go back and watch this.
I'm going to have to go back and watch this.
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