Episode 181: False Fall
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Transcript
Time Crisis, back again. It's time to go back to school as we enter September.
In this episode, we'll talk about DJ Khaled, Bob Dylan, the Pentagon, and of course, Starbucks.
This is a Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
Time Crisis, back again. What's up, everybody?
Well, Seinfeld and I were texting earlier today. I mean, you guys were privy to it because we both have an issue with Epson.
I had to get on Twitter and complain about consumer products, which is not a role I relish.
And you had to harness the official TC account.
I had to harness the TC army. Although, full disclosure, this is a true classic Twitter story.
I jumped the gun in my righteous anger towards Epson in jumping on Twitter because with another hour of looking at YouTube videos and messing around with the pretty bad
software that comes with the scanner,
I did manage to figure out how to make a contact sheet from my old negatives.
But very counterintuitive.
Did Epson clap back?
No, I thought maybe Epson would just be like, "I'm sorry, sir, for your problems. Please contact customer support."
Do some f***ing research.
Yeah, I think...
Get your ass on YouTube and figure it out before you start running your mouth.
I think, exactly, I think they... I'm sure someone at Epson has seen my tweet because it's got 37 likes.
So, you know, it's semi-viral. And I'm sure someone saw it and was just like, "This guy's a moron."
Granted, our software that comes with the scanner is terrible. And it's counterintuitive. But if he digs in and he's diligent, he'll figure it out. And I did.
So for the listeners, because we kind of have taken the summer off because we banked a bunch of Eps at the beginning of the summer.
We got to remind ourselves where the listeners are at. They just took down two episodes worth of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3 content.
It's a big hit.
So I imagine they want us to keep talking about Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3, not jerk the steering wheel too hard.
So let's make sure we talk about songs like "Dignity," "A Series of Dreams," "Brownsville Girl."
One thing I will say, though, even though we recorded that, what, like six weeks ago, I'm still pretty deep in the Bob Dylan Volume 3 world myself.
That's tight.
Or at least what we called "Middle Period Bob Dylan." No, don't worry. We're not going to talk about it all episode.
What songs in particular are still resonating with you?
Well, "A Series of Dreams," for sure. I threw that on this morning. "Brownsville Girl," still love. But then also it just sent me deeper into the '80s albums.
So lately I've been pretty into "Shot of Love," which I think is underrated.
You ever gone deep on "Shot of Love?"
I don't know it. What's on there?
It's the last "Christian" record. It's got this kind of like sweet reggae song called "Heart of Mine" that I think like Ron Wood is ripping some solos on and Ringo plays
drums on.
It's like just like a cool, mellow song called "Heart of Mine."
The last track is the kind of beautiful gospel type song called "Every Grain of Sand."
You may have heard it. People cover it. There's an Emmylou Harris cover of it. Beautiful song.
So I've been enjoying that, going deeper on those albums and then, you know, throwing on "Infidels."
My new theory about "Infidels"—this will be the last thing I say about Bob Dylan, but as people know on Time Crisis, we're big fans of the song "Joker Man."
And we famously broke the news that proved once and for all that the font "Joker Man" is named after the Bob Dylan song.
And if you're not a hardcore Dylan head, you might know that that song is on his album, his 1983 album "Infidels."
And anyway, this is my new theory. That album was after Bob had been going deep on "The Clash."
The timing works out. "Infidels" is '83. "The Clash Combat Rock" is '82.
And there's something about, first of all, calling the album "Infidels," it just makes me think of like "Rock the Casbah."
There's something about him doing like—there's a lot of reggae on it. He worked with Sly and Robbie.
"Joker Man" is a type of reggae song. There's "I.N.I." Also has a, you know, reggae Rasta influence.
And then he has his kind of pro-Israel song "Neighborhood Bully," which is not the take that "The Clash" would have had.
And yet, I still have this feeling he probably was listening to "Combat Rock," listening to songs like "Straight to Hell," "Rock the Casbah."
And maybe it inspired him to make an album called "Infidels" that has a little bit of reggae, a little bit of Middle Eastern politics.
It just tracks for me. Can't prove it, but—
Is "Neighborhood Bully" like unambiguously pro-Israel?
Yeah. Any—the most reasonable interpretation of that song is that it's pro-Israel. Maybe we should throw it on.
All right, guys, we promise we won't go too much '80s Dylan, but we should talk about "Neighborhood Bully."
Yeah, it's very clear in the lyrics that he's saying he thinks Israel is unfairly criticized.
And so the title is satirical. "Neighborhood Bully." He's saying, "Oh, he's the neighborhood bully, isn't he? All he wants to do is survive."
But he's the—oh, he's the neighborhood bully.
This might be his worst metaphor. I mean, it might be the worst—
It's kind of Trump, like, "I'm just, you know, I'm just a victim here."
Right. "Oh, but I'm the neighborhood bully."
This is so "Born in the USA" vibes.
Yeah.
"Born in the USA" vibes.
But wait, "Born in the USA" is '84, right?
Yeah.
So it's interesting. This is before "Born in the USA."
Yeah.
This reminds me of, like, Darlington County or something.
Yeah.
Same kind of, like, I don't know, like, kind of roots rock groove here.
Well, and also, you know, Bruce Springsteen and The Clash were 100% in dialogue.
You know, Bruce was listening to "London Calling," then he made "The River," then The Clash made "Sandinista," and then Bob Dylan is "Distant Third."
Not quite as relevant in this moment.
He's watching what's going on. He's working on "Infidel."
One day we'll get Bruce Springsteen on the show, and we'll just do, like, the ultimate Chris Farley interview with him.
We're just, like, just naming records.
Like, Bruce, everybody knows about New Jersey.
We've heard all the stories. It's like, we've compiled a list of a thousand artists and records.
Feel free to give one-word answers.
If you want to go deeper, we'd appreciate it.
And we're just like, "All right, Bruce, 1983, how much time were you spending with Bob Dylan's 'Infidels'?"
I love this as an interview concept.
Because I could see it go two ways.
One, he might be kind of like, be like, "I don't really remember that one."
Or I could also see Bruce being like, "Honestly, neighborhood bully. Big influence on 'Born in the USA.'"
He's got no allies to really speak of.
I really like—I do like the thing about Joe Strummer listening to "Infidels."
I bet he did. And also, as I was developing this theory, I could just totally picture Joe Strummer singing "Joker," man.
Oh, yeah.
Like that great horse-voiced Strummer delivery.
"Joker, man, that's just not good."
Like, it would make a lot of sense.
And then, you know, Bob Dylan famously did perform that song on Letterman with the Plugs, LA punk band.
You know, I don't know. They were drawing from the same well, I think.
Yeah, so anyway, that's what I've been listening to.
Jake, have you been spending much time with Bob Dylan, "The Greatest Hits Vol. 3" in the past month?
A little bit. I've gone back to Brownsville a few times.
I put that on a playlist, so I've heard it a few times.
Put it on my 2022 playlist.
Do you do that? Like, you know, every time you encounter a song that's new to you, I just put it on that year's playlist.
So then at the end of the year, I'm like, "Oh, yeah, I learned about all these songs this year."
So Brownsville girl's on there.
I should do that. I always end up breaking them into these clusters of three or four songs I get into in a two-week period.
And then I'm just looking through, and there's this playlist called "Sandwich Sunday."
And I just look, and it's just three Bob Dylan songs, some rare groove funk. It's random.
I should compile them all into one mega list.
Speaking of Dylan and The Clash, guys, I didn't know this. Have you ever heard their cover of "The Man and Me"?
The Clash?
Yeah, it was a secret. It was a demo for London Calling.
Wow! Oh my God. Can we throw that on the stuff?
Yeah.
So slow.
This is like some real practice room vibes.
Yeah.
I don't think I would have recognized the song if I didn't know it was "Man and Me."
I can kind of hear it on the verse.
Yeah.
Interesting. A reggae "Man and Me," 1979.
And also it's worth pointing out that for people of our generation, the Gen Xers, the Silverback Millennials, of course "Man and Me" is a top five Dylan song.
But a huge part of that is because of "The Big Lebowski" and it being prominently featured on the soundtrack.
My understanding is that before "The Big Lebowski," of course Dylanheads knew the song and loved it.
It was a well-regarded song, but that wasn't prime-time Dylan.
Definitely my introduction to the song at age 21, I had not...
Yeah, I was 21 when that movie came out.
Saw it as soon as it came out.
I remember being like...
I have a pretty visceral memory of like, "Whoa, what is this Dylan?"
It's obviously Dylan, right?
Right.
I don't think when I was 21 I'd even really dipped into any of the 70s stuff.
I really only knew "Highway 61" and the early stuff.
Yeah, maybe you might have known a bit of "Desire" or "Blood on the Tracks," but not the early 70s.
A little. Yeah. And I was definitely like, "This is amazing."
It's interesting to picture Joe Strummer being like, "I want to do that song."
For instance, if you told me there was them jamming on a reggae version of "Knocking on Heaven's Door," I'd be like, "All right."
Sure.
"Knocking on Heaven's Door" is like a standard.
"Masters of War." Okay, yeah, sure. Reggae version.
Right, yeah. Blown in the wind.
But for them to pick "Man and Me," even to jam on, that implies some fairly serious Dylan fandom, I think.
So, smash cut to "Infidels," '83.
Strummer's there at the record store, day one, buying that.
Oh, yeah.
Throwing that on.
Throws on Joe.
I could totally picture that.
[imitates drum roll]
Or track one, "Joker Man." He's like, "Oh, s***."
All right, Bob, you're on the same wavelength.
Old guy still got it.
Still got it.
♪ I'm a king told the boogie man ♪
♪ You have to let that raga drop ♪
♪ The oil down the desert way ♪
♪ Had to shake it to the top ♪
♪ The shake he throw is Cadillac ♪
♪ He went cruising down the hill ♪
♪ The prison was a standing ♪
♪ On the radiator grill ♪
♪ Shari, don't back it ♪
♪ Rock the casbah, rock the casbah ♪
♪ Shari, don't back it ♪
♪ Rock the casbah, rock the casbah ♪
I'm in Japan right now.
You might notice that it's not the best audio.
Hopefully, it's a little better than FaceTime.
I don't have all my gear with me.
I'm going to get it together, but just at this moment,
you know, sometimes you think those banked EPs
are going to last forever.
Next thing you know, you're doing back-to-school shopping.
I thought we were good to go till, like,
at least late September, and then it just crept up on me.
I was like, "S***, damn it."
Like, we're out of banked.
Yep.
Summer's over.
The banked EPs have all gone home.
Back to school.
Back to life.
Back to reality.
Back to that TV grind.
Here we are.
I got to tell you, I was depressed, guys.
I could feel it.
I feel like I was getting to the tail end
of not hanging out with you.
That's how I knew.
Aw.
It was like--
This is how we hang out, so--
You know what I mean?
So there was a time where it was like,
"Oh, yeah, I'm getting calls from people saying,
'Oh, I love more Dylan.'"
Really? You're getting calls?
I am getting a few calls.
Who called?
Definitely a text.
On the rotary phone?
On my landline.
I got a fax.
It's like, "Nick Weidenfeld, please hold for--
Amanda picks up, and she says,
"Oh, Nick phone's for you."
Just get in, says, "Love the Dylan,"
and then hang up.
[laughter]
No, I got it.
I've told you, I have a couple friends.
"Nick, this is President Joe Biden."
Just wanted to say.
All those potential spam calls are just fans of the show.
No, Emily, my friend Emily and Vernon,
who, you know, I've talked to you guys about Vernon.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love Vernon.
Vernon Chapman, comedy legend,
does South Park and Wonder Shows,
and he called up, he said,
"I dipped into volume three because of the show."
And I was like, "Oh, well, that's great,"
because I really did think we were going to lose people
in that two-parter.
You know, as with anything with a point of view,
it's like the people who love it are going to love it
and really appreciate it.
No, I got some nice emails from people, too.
But, yeah, anyway, back to life, back to reality.
Can't live in Bob Dylan volume three forever.
Maybe we should return to it every summer.
Next summer, we'll just go deeper and deeper.
Next summer, we'll do four parts.
We'll record it in late June,
say, "See you in September, guys.
Enjoy an excruciatingly detailed four-part take
on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits volume three."
Someone on Twitter had the idea of us compiling
our own version of Greatest Hits volume four
from 1993 onward or whatever it was, '91 onward.
Yeah, now, of course, we'll be flying semi-blind
because a huge component of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits
technique is to use unreleased songs.
That is true.
So we'll be flying a bit blind, but we can try.
I have been going deeper on those albums, too.
I mean, it's so funny with Dylan.
You know all the classic, classic stuff,
and then you realize there's a whole world
of Dylan fans who think that Mississippi
off Love and Theft is perhaps his greatest song
or certainly a top three Dylan song.
Damn.
Do you know this song, Jake?
No. I'm woefully ignorant of everything,
basically, from that era.
So I'd really have my work cut out for me.
All right.
Let's move away from Dylan now because summer's over.
Are you sure?
Yeah.
Okay. We'll come back soon.
Oh, the last thing I wanted to say about Dylan
is I'm here in Japan, posted up for a little while.
Rashida's doing a show out here,
so we're doing our thing in Japan.
Coincidentally, though, Vampire Weekend had a show in Japan,
which was kind of nice.
We did a very brief Asia tour,
headlined Fuji Rock for the first time.
I probably have mentioned this before.
How'd it go?
And then we played a festival called Pentaport in Seoul.
Or actually, no, it's in Incheon, Korea.
We stayed in Seoul.
It's in a city.
It's where the airport, the big airport is.
But last time we played Fuji Rock,
we played it four times now, which is pretty crazy.
Just been in the game a long time.
Last time we played Fuji Rock,
we played after Bob Dylan.
Bob Dylan was, of course, the headliner,
but we got an email like a month or two before the show
where they were just like,
"Hey, Bob Dylan doesn't want to play that late.
Can you swap slots with him?"
We're like, "Sure."
So it doesn't mean Bob wasn't the headliner,
but it meant we got to play after him.
But this time we were the official headliner.
And, you know, Baeho always makes the initial set list.
He's really good at it.
He always has great instincts.
And then, you know, me and CT will go through it
and have some suggestions or Maestona's feeling,
"Ah, can we open with something different tonight?"
Or whatever.
So we go through it together,
but he always does these great first drafts.
And he did a bunch of drafts for all the festivals
we did this summer.
And I saw Fuji Rock, and he put Joker Man closer.
I assume--I actually didn't ask him--
I assume it was partially a nod to the fact
that last time we were there, we played after Bob Dylan.
Or he just felt like we hadn't busted out of Joker Man
in a long time, but we closed Fuji Rock
with our 10-minute Joker Man cover.
Kind of a big swing, but I think it worked.
We also had like--the PA was on the fritz
for the first 15 minutes of that show.
So we come out, like the great crowd,
start playing, and then we keep hearing these
like "k-k" sounds.
And eventually it got so bad we had to go offstage.
That was kind of a bummer.
So then as we're onstage playing,
you know, I'm still kind of getting over the stress
of the PA being on the fritz.
And I'm thinking like, "Is this Joker Man closer
going to like hit right?"
But it did.
The crowd was down.
Didn't lose anybody.
And I think I already forgot, but they--
I felt like it should have some context.
So I learned how to say, "This next one's
a Bob Dylan song," in Japanese.
I think it was really simple, right?
Wait, Seinfeld, you know some Japanese, right?
Yeah, like not that much.
Like if you said it to me, I wouldn't be able
to verify whether it's correct.
All he knows how to say is,
"This next song is Bob Dylan's."
Yeah, that's the only thing.
I think it's, "Uta no Bob Dylan desu."
Yeah, that sounds correct.
Yeah, it does sound right.
It has that feeling.
Sounds right.
I mean, no, no.
I think you probably nailed it.
How did you learn to say it?
I was just asking people backstage
before the show, and also having been in Japan.
You know, normally we're just there for like
four or five days, and I've been posted up here
a little bit longer.
I felt a little more confident.
You know, I've been taking some classes
while I'm here just to--
I barely know anything, but just to say
a little bit more in Japanese,
a little more confidently.
I mean, of course, I always think about this.
You go on stage in a foreign country,
and people give you props in Korea
just to say, "Thank you," in Korean.
You'll get a little bit of, "Okay!"
But it is just funny to imagine
rolling up to a show in New York or LA,
and just imagine that the person on stage
spoke a different language for 99% of their banter.
You know, just like somebody in Korean
or Spanish or something just got up
and said, "Thank you, Los Angeles."
And you're like, "Woo!"
In a totally different language,
they're like, "Anyway, it's been a long time
since we've been--"
You know, you're just like--
We're very lucky and privileged to speak English.
Big blue, for once in my life I felt close to you
I was so overcome with emotion
When I was hurt and in need of affection
When I was tired and I couldn't go home
Then you offered protection
So am I learning my lesson?
Or am I back on my own?
Big blue, for once in my life I felt close to you
I was so overcome with emotion
When I was hurt and in need of affection
When I was tired and I couldn't go home
Then you offered protection
So am I learning my lesson?
Or am I back on my own?
Big blue, for once in my life I felt close to you
I was so overcome with emotion
When I was hurt and in need of affection
When I was tired and I couldn't go home
Then you offered protection
So am I learning my lesson?
Or am I back on my own?
Big blue, for once in my life I felt close to you
I was so overcome with emotion
When I was hurt and in need of affection
When I was tired and I couldn't go home
Then you offered protection
So am I learning my lesson?
Or am I back on my own?
Did you have to brush up on those Joker Man lyrics?
Because it's a long song.
I realize that I have it pretty like, it comes back to me quickly.
Pretty dialed.
And I really enjoy playing these long songs
because I do feel like it gives me,
and sometimes I have the lyrics on stage if I want to back up,
but it gives me a chance to like, delve back into them.
And like, think about them.
You know, I'm always coming up with like, new theories on stage
thinking about, you know, really, who is the Joker Man?
And yeah, but I know it pretty well.
I feel like someone sent to the thread that Vampire Weekend was approaching
and it's been built to spill for the record of times that they've played Joker Man live.
Yes.
I feel like you sent it to the thread.
Are you basically neck and neck with BTS?
Yeah, we're neck and neck because one feature I love of setlist.fm,
the setlist website,
is that you can pick a song and see numbers of how many times it's been played by everybody.
So for instance, you click on the song Joker Man,
you're going to see number one by a wide margin is, as you might expect, Bob Dylan.
He's played Joker Man a hundred something times.
Number two is Built to Spill, who I believe has played Joker Man 19 times.
18.
18. And number three is Vampire Weekend with how many?
15. But does that count Fuji Rock?
It probably, yeah, it must.
Yeah, okay.
If we play Joker Man three more times and Built to Spill does not,
and hopefully they're not keeping in their sets lately,
we will get the coveted number two slot of all time for Joker Man.
Oh yeah, look, most recently played 29th Vampire Weekend.
Yeah, they're up to date.
So we're the most, as far as setlist.fm is concerned,
the last time Joker Man was performed live in the whole world was Vampire Weekend at Fuji Rock.
That's something to hang your hat on.
That's a good feeling.
Hey, let me ask you something.
I don't see Bob busting it out anytime soon.
Oh, and Matt just pointed out Built to Spill played it last in May 2015.
So they may have given up.
Out of rotation.
I mean, I suggested that Mountain Brew start playing it.
Did you?
Yeah, and take that slot from Vampire Weekend.
Uh, I don't, you know, that's an interesting idea.
I don't think I have the time to commit those lyrics to memory.
It'll take a while.
I don't, you know, I don't want to step on a friend's turf.
Thank you.
I'm going to respect the VW and BTS Joker Man legacy.
Hey, look at this.
And Bob Dylan.
Oh yeah, and Bob, sure.
Bob Dylan hasn't played it live since 2003.
So you could like, I mean, you could probably get there.
No, if we keep at it, and I will say, you know,
and I think this is the reason that Bayo puts it in setlist.
He closed out a cool festival in the Netherlands in 2019 with Joker Man.
Another big swing.
And it was kind of cool because, you know, we have like this like,
kind of cool like kraut rock part in the middle.
I will say of all like the covers, it's one that just like feels good.
I think, you know, maybe because it's like a reggae groove,
it feels familiar.
You get to know it.
Even if you don't know the song, by the end, you're like pretty psyched on it.
It does feel like one that will be in our here and there in our setlist for a long time to come.
Can I ask is setlist.f, like how rigorous, like if you did two, three, four Joker Man back to back at one show,
just to beat that record in one shot, are they counting that as one Joker Man?
Or is that, are they going to count each Joker Man?
I think they would count each Joker Man.
But, you know, it's a community based thing.
So, you know, you got to hope that the fans are correctly taking down the setlist.
I've rarely seen mistakes.
So, I trust it.
But, you know, right or wrong, it's the website of record for these types of issues.
Got it. Would you consider it?
Yeah, sure.
We could do like a surprise show somewhere.
Maybe like a lead up to the next album.
Everybody's expecting that they're going to like hear some new songs or something.
Do an underplay at a small club.
Gold diggers.
Hey, guys, thanks for coming.
You know, our next album is coming out in a few months.
And, you know, so we want to have some real big fans with us just to kind of kick off that whole thing.
And to help us make sure that we have played Joker Man more than anybody in the world,
excepting, of course, Mr. Bob Dylan.
So, anyway, you know, with your permission, we're going to play it about 10 times right now.
And yeah, that's it.
So buckle up.
We could play it three times, but we really want to secure the title.
Yeah, once you know, once Doug and the boys get word of this.
Doug's like, it's on full.
And Joker Man War starts playing it one to two times every night.
Two bands that just play Joker Man on their entire tour.
And if there's anybody listening, don't mention this to the BTS, Build to Spill team.
Just don't get them fired up about it.
So I hear it's a pumpkin spice latte season again.
This drives me up a wall when these chain retail establishments
bust out the sort of like autumnal fall vibes when it's still August.
It's insane.
I saw a Halloween Superstore open the other day.
Oh, CBS is full Halloween mode.
It's just like, guys, come on, after Labor Day at least.
Even after Labor Day, I mean, when does summer end?
What's the last day of summer? Like mid-September?
Technically September 22nd, I think.
Oh my gosh.
Let the light start to shift a little bit.
Let the leaves start to kind of go into their fallow mode just an eensy bit.
Right. And also, like many places in the world, fall is getting shorter and shorter.
Summer is getting longer and longer.
So not only does the actual fall sometimes not feel like fall,
but by making the false fall earlier and earlier in the year,
you're entering this period of like six weeks of total cognitive dissonance
of just boiling hot summer and then fall vibes.
And it's just pathetic. It's sad.
It's like getting like a piping hot pumpkin spice latte at like three in the afternoon
and it's like 101 degrees in the parking lot.
Just like the heat waves, just like the mirage waves coming off the hood of your car.
False fall, dude.
I mean, LA is particularly false fall.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a false fall.
Fall Alex Jones.
2022, you got a false fall attack.
You know, it's funny. The other day I was thinking like about,
I've never actually read it, but you know that old book that's about climate change,
environmentalism by Rachel Carson called Silent Spring.
Mm-hmm. From like the 60s, I think.
Yeah, from the 60s, I believe. Yeah.
And, you know, she was sounding the alarm all the way back then.
But I don't think it was about climate change.
I was just thinking it was about like pesticides.
Yeah, pesticides. Oh, pesticides.
All right. It's an early environmentalist book in the modern era.
I was just thinking about how dope that title is, Silent Spring.
And I was just thinking like you could never call an album Silent Spring, though.
It's just like too, the title is a little bit too famous.
Like, yeah, it's a dope title.
Like that's why people still talk about that book, Silent Spring.
It just wouldn't be that cool if like Vampire Weekend had an album called Silent Spring.
As much as it's a resonant title, I feel like some of our listeners would be like,
"Eh, really? You just named it that after the book?"
I think False Fall is it.
So then I just realized like, yeah, because Silent Spring is like serious.
It doesn't have like even a touch of humor.
It's not digging deep like Father of the Bride, you know, really just going deep into culture.
It's, you know, Silent Spring.
Anyway, yeah, False Fall. Now that's something that could be ours.
Also, it's kind of like sounds a little bit like a hardcore EP from the 80s.
"False Fall!"
Earth Crisis is putting out their new EP, False Fall.
False Fall. Our new album, False Fall, in stores now.
Track one, Pumpkin Spice Latte.
Iced.
It's just like 27, 45-second songs, incredibly angry,
all about this feeling of these corporate marketing people making us celebrate fall,
starting in late August.
♪ My strength, my blood, taking it all back ♪
♪ The youth and most deposed, turn the tide, counterattack ♪
♪ Violence against violence, like the roadblocks ♪
♪ Bring it on, fire starts to purify ♪
♪ The pain that society dwells in ♪
♪ No mercy, no exceptions, a declaration of total war ♪
♪ The innocent, the victims, the reason I quit war ♪
So, Seinfeld, you did some interesting digging.
You found an interview or some article with the man who's considered the godfather of the Pumpkin Spice Latte?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just sharing out an article I found on CBS News.
I don't--oh, yeah, what's his name? Dukes.
Peter Dukes. He's currently the director of global growth and concepts,
but he was the creator of the Pumpkin Spice Latte.
And, yeah, there's kind of like this picture of him, like, holding a pumpkin, looking a little bit diabolical.
But, yeah, that article was filled with great quotes, but, I mean, it was interesting.
He talks about the formation of the latte, and what did he say?
He says that he had knocked it out of the park with the Christmas beverage slate.
And a lot of the younger folks listening right now, they just take it for granted
that you can go into most coffee shops in America around Christmas time,
and you can get some kind of peppermint latte or a gingerbread cappuccino or these types of things.
But, you know, back in the day, you go to a coffee place, you probably get just some type of regular degular coffee.
And, yes, it would be Christmas time. Maybe you go to a bakery nearby and get a gingerbread cookie, and you could eat it together.
But the idea of combining those things, as much as that just seems like a fundamental human right
and a basic staple of the American diet, until the late '90s, this was not as obvious as it seems.
And this was also part of Starbucks' takeover. You know, the '90s had this explosive growth,
and then in the late '90s, they started introducing these seasonal beverages in wintertime.
One more reason to go to Starbucks. And I guess that's a classic American move.
When a company gets big enough, eventually, they have to at least try to own Christmas.
In fact, I did have an experience recently in Japan, driving past one of the classic Japanese vending machines,
because they always have different types of branding, beverage vending machines that are on every corner.
And this one had some Coca-Cola branding, and it was a polar bear holding the Coke.
I don't know why in the middle of the summer, they had that, maybe it's just year-round.
And my son, who's, you know, coming into his own, asking lots of questions, said, "Daddy, what is that polar bear holding?"
And I realized I had a lot of explaining to do. And I said, "Well, he's holding a Coca-Cola."
And he didn't really know what Coca-Cola was. I said, "It's like a soda." He said, "Why?"
And then I realized, you know, it's not easy to explain. And I said, "Well, you know, it's a soda."
And then around Christmas time, they do these ads where the polar bear holds it.
And he said, you know, just trying to explain this kind of insane, multilayered concept.
And I said, "But son, if you're really interested in these types of discussions,
I'd love to put you onto an internet radio show that I've been a part of for about five years."
I think if you start around episode 33, it really comes into its own.
Ezra Koenig's Time Crisis. Music so hot, it'll melt your face off.
Yeah, but it is funny. You just see this polar bear and you take it for as a given, like,
"Oh yeah, Coca-Cola with their polar bears." And you realize that was somebody made that decision.
They're like, "Coca-Cola is one of the biggest brands in America. We have to have a foothold in Christmas.
You're not a real American brand if you don't have like a Christmas tradition."
I mean, Coca-Cola is especially insane because many parts of the country are cold at Christmas.
Like why would you be taking down an ice cold glass bottle of Coke then? It doesn't make any sense.
At least with Starbucks, it's cozy to go get a warm beverage.
But anyway, I would make the case that in the late '90s, Starbucks was really coming into its own
and truly becoming an iconic American brand a la Coca-Cola. And part of that was owning Christmas.
Now, Starbucks is not just a place where you go slam a coffee in the morning before work.
It's a place that you might even make a little trip with your family to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
You know, that's next level.
It's a lifestyle brand.
It becomes a lifestyle brand at that point.
So anyway, this guy knocked it out of the park with, I mean, what were the initial Christmas beverages?
Is it actually a peppermint latte?
Peppermint mocha was the big one.
So peppermint mocha takes off and then they're like, "Well, let's move into the fall now. Let's own the fall."
And Duke says, came up with a hundred different ideas.
They were looking at a chocolate, caramel, you know, cinnamon stuff.
And then this idea of pumpkin spice comes about.
And this is such an interesting quote.
"We brought in pumpkin pies into our R&D lab and actually just poured shots of espresso on them and ate them."
You can imagine.
Wait, back up, back up.
Out of control.
This guy is truly a wild man.
Also, the way he describes it too is just like, especially because I imagine he's not like a food scientist, right?
He's a marketing guy.
Yeah, he looks like him.
Whatever they actually come up with, they eventually have to send down to the boys in the lab to actually cook up, like, you know, whatever.
Could you imagine?
Specific.
Could you imagine if you went into a Starbucks and you ordered a pumpkin spice latte and they just poured a shot of espresso on a pumpkin pie?
On a piece of pumpkin pie.
And just gave it to you?
I mean, it kind of reminds me.
That sounds kind of nice.
Sort of like an affogato.
But I'm just also like picturing this guy being in like, not even in like some industrial kitchen, you know, he's like an office guy.
He's probably got his corner office and he's like, "Everybody go to my office."
And he's just like, "All right, bust out these pumpkin pies.
Everybody grab a slice, dump an espresso shot on it and eat it."
What did they learn from that?
Yeah.
And by the way.
This thing has legs.
Right.
Yeah.
And just to be clear, at the time, he was actually in charge of espresso.
Like that was his beat.
Yeah.
The holiday menu wasn't his responsibility.
He was just looking after espresso.
So this was a real moment of inspiration, I think, where he had his thing that he owned and he said, "Well, let me just throw my product on the pumpkin pie."
Oh, okay.
So he didn't invent the peppermint mocha himself, but the company had had success with it.
So here's an ambitious guy in corporate America.
He made it to head of espresso, but that's not going to get you into the country club.
But I bet there was an executive in the holiday eventizing or seasonal beverages department who was furious.
Oh, because he stepped on his toes?
Absolutely.
That kind of overreaching in the executive space?
We finally have our time crisis, Neo Mad Men take.
This takes place at Starbucks in the late '90s.
I can't even remember the character.
What's the guy that Don Draper, like the young guy, Pete?
Oh, yeah.
Pete Campbell.
Yeah, you have a Don Draper type guy who's been running the holiday marketing for years.
And then you got this ambitious young guy, head of espresso, who's just coming in, throwing all these crazy ideas.
The older guy is walking past his office and doubles back, peers in.
Are these f***ing weirdos just dumping espresso on pumpkin pie?
These guys are f***ing insane.
But then it gets really nasty, and that guy eventually takes his job, and so on and so on.
At the very least, it could be an Academy Award-winning film.
At the very least.
At the very least, it'll win Best Picture at the Oscars.
Adam Driver stars in Head of Espresso.
Like a fast-paced ensemble, like an Adam McKay, a little bit big short.
Yep.
Okay.
Espresso Man.
No, it's the guy that made Moneyball.
Very classy, kind of taut moviemaking.
Oh, yeah. What's that guy's name? Bennett Miller.
Nice. Good pull.
Yeah. I think this could be really good.
Shake down 1979
Cool kids never have the time
Like what right above the stream
You and I should be
Two buckets skipping like a stone
Headlights pointed at the dome
We were sure we'd never see an end to it all
And I don't even care to shake this in the blue
And we're looking down now
Just where our folks are meant to go
I guess I've got to make us all
To the other end of the line
So instead of Espresso, he starts experimenting.
Yeah, so maybe that explains why he was experimenting in such a kind of like rough-handed way.
Also, there's something I don't want to criticize them too much because
as anybody involved in the creative process knows,
sometimes you are blind to the most obvious ideas.
And in retrospect, you think, how did we not try that drum beat?
It's such a classic, simple drum beat.
We didn't even try it for months.
And we're thinking about all these other crazy things.
And so, sometimes you can be blind to a solution that's right under your nose.
But also this idea that they hadn't already tried pumpkin.
The way he frames it is as if I tried hundreds of things,
all sorts of bizarre combinations to try to connote fall for the American consumer.
And then finally, I was so exasperated,
I just bought a pumpkin pie and dumped espresso on it.
And I said, this is it.
As if that wouldn't be the first thing that the lab would say,
"All right, traditionally for fall, there's three things that people might do.
One of them is pumpkin. Here's an artificial pumpkin syrup we created. What do you think?"
Pile of leaves latte.
[laughter]
Apple cider.
Apple cider.
Apple cider latte.
It's hard to believe this.
I think it probably was the guys in the lab were like,
"Here's a pumpkin syrup we can squirt into the espresso."
[laughter]
And that was it.
I like the romantic. I like the Jackson Pollock.
You know, he's just like sweating it out.
I don't buy it.
He's throwing...
He's so exasperated.
The Adam Driver's so exasperated.
His wife is like, "We're going to my parents for Thanksgiving."
And he's like, "I can't. I can't. I gotta crack this thing."
I gotta work.
"I don't have time."
"No, you haven't spent any time with the kids. We haven't seen my parents in two years."
"Daddy! Daddy!"
"Daddy, please!"
"No, no. I promise. We'll do something special for Christmas."
It's like planes and trains on automobiles.
"You're getting on that plane to Minnesota. We're going to spend some time in my hometown."
"No, I got it. I got it."
"And he's just... He's so angry."
And he's like, he's huffing and puffing.
He's sitting there and, "Oh my God, I don't have time for this."
And then it's Thanksgiving dinner.
And he's like, he's looking around at the table.
"Turkey. We already tried that. Cranberry sauce."
Wait, wait, wait. Turkey. We already tried turkey coffee.
Yeah, turkey espresso.
That's hard work.
Turkey delight.
"We already tried the turkey espresso. Oh God. What are we... Cranberry sauce. Mashed potatoes. Tried it."
Roasted Brussels sprouts.
And he's so pissed. Then at the end, the grandma brings out the pumpkin pie.
And he's like, "Uh, wait a second."
And then she's like, "Can I offer anyone tea or coffee?"
And he's like, "I gotta go."
He gets on the first plane back to New York.
He just takes the coffee and pours it all over the pie.
"Dad, what are you doing?"
"The f*** are you doing?"
He yanks the whole pie out of grandma's hands, dumps the big pitcher of coffee all over it.
Everyone's like, "What are you doing? He's lost his damn mind. I knew you shouldn't have married this monster."
He stuffs his face in it. "I gotta go."
Runs out into the night.
Shirtless for some reason.
Yeah.
Grandpa grabs a shotgun, tries to shoot him.
"You ruined Thanksgiving."
Oh man. I mean, I love it. Starbucks, terrible coffee, and then they just add a bunch of steamed milk and sugar to their terrible coffee.
Sorry, you got winners. Pumpkin spice.
I have to pick the last shot of the movie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's been run off. The family's all around. "You should have never married this guy."
He's ruined Thanksgiving. Everybody sort of goes to bed.
All the dishes are out and the wife just feels so bad. She just walks downstairs and she just sees this pumpkin pie that is now just in coffee.
And she just sort of looks at it.
You think she's like, "I can't believe I married this s***." But then she takes a bite.
And she's just like, "I can't believe it. I married a genius."
I know why I married him.
She calls him and she's like, "Just do it."
Peter Dukes, you did it.
Now that's the man I married.
Peter, baby.
Wait, is that right? Is it Peter Dukes?
Yeah.
Peter Dukes, you did it.
Peter Dukes, you crazy son of a b****.
He's really apologetic. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me."
She's like, "No, no, no. Don't apologize."
And maybe it's one of those movies like Michael Clayton where it's just called Peter Dukes.
And everyone's like, "What's this new Bradley Cooper movie about? It's called Peter Dukes?"
And people are like, "Oh yeah, David Fincher directed it? What is it?"
Oh yeah.
Oh no, it's about the creation of the pumpkin spice lot.
Q4 holiday release, prestige title.
Oh yeah, man.
There's your Oscar right there.
Against some huge Marvel movie.
Coming out Thanksgiving weekend.
Peter Dukes.
Peter...
And then it's like at the Academy Awards, it's just like, "Nomination for Best Picture, Peter Dukes."
And it goes to a scene of Bradley Cooper dumping the pot of coffee on the pie.
"Get the hell out of here!"
Jennifer Lawrence is just, "What are you doing?"
Kevin Hart does a bit when he's hosting. He gives out pumpkin spice to the audience as part of his opening monologue.
Oh yeah, lots of Peter Dukes jokes.
Got a riff on the Peter Dukes title.
This morning was lovely, I woke up in my bed again
I poured the granola, I got out the butter and bread
I reached in the cupboard for sugar and vitamin C
I threw out a tablet of expired Trevaline
Oh, oh, oh
Left a coffee sitting all alone in thought
Wondering if I should give it up
Move away, find a little spot on the coast
No reception and my secret goes unknown
But I'm too scared to try
Yeah, I'm too scared to try
Yeah, I'm too scared to try
What else is on the fall menu besides pumpkin spice?
This year they did roll out a cold brew. It's the Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew.
That combines their normal cold brew with sweet vanilla syrup, with pumpkin cream cold foam and pumpkin spice.
And also they have another beverage called the Apple Crisp Macchiato. Jake, I see you're intrigued.
What are the calorie counts on those iced beverages?
Zero calories.
You're lying.
Yeah, I don't know. It's probably hitting a thousand.
Wow, you think that high?
A thousand? Yeah, you'd be surprised.
Probably like a 16 ounce. What was it? Pumpkin Cream?
It was the Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew.
It's so upsetting. I mean, maybe the sugar.
I mean, that's like a hamburger and fries.
Hold on, we gotta confirm what this is.
Pumpkin Cream. Live Googling, folks.
Let me get a Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew.
Oh, it's not too crazy. 250 calories.
What about a pumpkin spice latte?
Extra pump of pumpkin.
And of course this depends on the size.
Well, Jake crunches that, just for comparison, a Big Mac is 563 calories.
Just the burger.
Just the burger. So if you're doing two, I guess that's like having a Big Mac.
Pumpkin spice lattes coming in at 380.
Okay, so it's like three quarters of a Big Mac.
Yeah, it's not saying what size it is, but it looks like...
Probably the medium.
50 grams of sugar. No big deal.
Okay, but I'm interested in what other flavors are there.
There's the pumpkin flavor profile.
Now, I guess there's Apple Crisp, also represents fall. Anything else?
I'm just going to go ahead and Google Starbucks fall drinks.
I'm looking that up as well.
Fall drinks are back, folks. I'm over at Starbucks.com right now.
What about like maple syrup? That's kind of autumnal.
Oh, they got the pumpkin cream cheese muffin.
If you're looking for like a pastry pumpkin scone, that's not new, but it's got pumpkin loaf.
That's a year-round treat. Get that anytime.
Is there no maple syrup? There's not a maple macchiato?
We got a caramel apple spice. We got a steamed apple juice.
We got a pumpkin spice cream.
Again, the website is Starbucks.com. Not great.
Oh, there's a maple cinnamon macchiato.
Oh, wait. No, no, no. This is Starbucks at home.
So, there's a recipe on their site for how you can make that.
This is terrible radio.
No, it's good.
Okay.
This is compelling stuff.
If you say.
I would listen.
There's listen.
There's two types of time crisis listeners.
There's people who want to hear four hours of a deep dive on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. 3.
And then you got the freaks who want to hear a solid 90 minutes.
There's an apple crisp macchiato.
On Starbucks menu.
That's the other introduction.
A lot of variations on the theme of pumpkin spice and apple crisp.
Those are the tent poles.
And then they're kind of pivoting from those two flavors.
Okay.
And by the way, that maple macchiato, that was discontinued in 2014, it looks like.
That's old news.
But you can still get it in Canada.
Actually, you know what, Seinfeld, another thing that's got me thinking about is what's going on at Tim Hortons in the fall.
Like the other big chains, have they been forced to adopt pumpkin?
Oh, yeah.
No, Tim Hortons is on the whole trend.
They've got a full pumpkin spice lineup.
And they've got a new maple collection as of this year.
This just in.
So if you want to know, here's the full rundown.
You got pumpkin spice dream donut.
You got the creamy maple pecan.
Pumpkin spice dream donut?
Yeah, it's a dream donut.
It's got some melatonin.
Yeah, and it's got.
Some magnesium and melatonin.
It might knock you out if you eat it late enough.
It's got the fall colored orange fondant, which Jake, I know you like good orange fondant.
It's topped with candied praline pumpkin seeds.
So they got the seeds in there, giving you some real raw texture.
Weird.
And then it's got even more fondant.
It's got a burst of white fondant.
So this is.
Is that like the way that in Canada, all documents have to be in English and French, even if
you're in like British Columbia and nobody speaks French.
Is there also some kind of rule that every donut has to contain some fondant?
Yes, there's a certain fondant quotient in most foodstuffs in Canada.
You got the creamy maple pecan dream donut.
Pumpkin spice muffin, which I think Starbucks has the exact same menu item.
Ice cappuccino.
There's a pumpkin spice ice cappuccino.
And actually, you know, this is what when we're talking about the calorie count.
So my first job was at Tim Hortons when I was 16.
I'm sure we talked about this.
Wait, did we?
Probably yours.
This seems like a real kind of.
It's kind of a bombshell.
Yeah, I don't think we have.
I'm sure we talked about.
Sometimes you're too polite Canadian.
You got to tell us this stuff.
I think you got a number. You got to jump on this one.
I only bring it up because the ice cappuccino Tim Hortons was famously such a high calorie beverage that it was almost like a talking point.
Like, can you believe that there are?
And I looked it up as 360.
They must have reduced that.
I seem to remember it being twice as high calorie.
That's rivaling that pumpkin spice latte.
Correct.
Upper threes.
You were a cashier.
You were not making the ice cappuccino yourself.
No, I was.
I was making the ice cap.
I was on the drive through.
I was a cashier.
I was doing the chili.
I was doing the whole you kind of you wear a lot of hats.
You wear a lot of visors.
Someone pulls up like good morning Seinfeld.
Let me get a.
What I said is that's a French Canadian.
I'm doing a French Canadian guy.
Okay, talking to you.
Hey, good morning Seinfeld.
Let me get.
Oh, no, this is really bad.
Sorry.
Let me get a cappuccino.
I got to stop you there.
Two things.
So this was a long time ago.
So I wasn't Seinfeld at the time.
And also he wouldn't know.
Oh, this is a regular.
So this person knows me already in the scenario.
Yeah.
Okay.
Got it.
Okay.
You're saying into the loudspeaker.
Welcome to Tim Hortons.
This is Seinfeld.
How may I help you?
Oh, I'm introducing myself.
Yeah, I'm introducing myself by name.
Good morning Seinfeld.
Let me get my usual ice cappuccino.
And you're just like extra sports.
I have to remind you, of course, that this is a very high calorie beverage.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I heard it all before Seinfeld.
I noticed you've done me in a French accent as well in that scenario.
No, no.
I was trying to do your Anglo accent.
One question I have for you is what neighborhood was the Tim Hortons in?
Oh, that would have been in MDG in Montreal.
And we covered some of this stuff with Chromio.
We actually had a great conversation about the whole history of language and the Quebecois identity politics and things like that.
When you're a young guy who speaks English at home working at Tim Hortons,
does everybody come to the drive-thru speaking English or you have to be ready to be bilingual?
You got to be ready to be bilingual.
And that's an Anglophone neighborhood.
So, you know, you're kind of getting half and half.
I was pretty good at French back then and then I've since gotten quite rusty at it.
Bonjour, Seinfeld!
So the year is like '98. Seinfeld is still on television at the time and I'm being called.
It's just confusing.
But anyway, the reason I brought that up was because it reminded me, this conversation reminded me of what a high calorie beverage the iced cappuccino is.
And the way you make the iced cappuccino is it's a sludge that comes out of a machine.
So you turn a crank, it's a dark brown sludge and then you pour in cream and then there's like a mixing thing.
And it's quite, it's like a syrup. It's a sludgy syrup.
And now they have the pumpkin spice version of it just to bring it back to.
Interesting. I mean, I do remember Seinfeld, us talking about Tim Hortons and you telling us about how they have to like throw the coffee out every hour.
Their slogan is "Always Fresh." I don't know if it's that anymore, but it's 20, every 20 minutes you dump, there's a timer.
I totally remember you telling us that. Maybe you quickly said, because I used to work there and we didn't dwell on it.
Or maybe, maybe you're just being very cool. And you said, yeah, you know, up there, they're always throwing that coffee out after about an hour.
Like, oh, that's, that's an interesting fact.
You just took it for granted.
I just feel like this couldn't have not come up in the past.
I feel like you took it for granted that it was just a great Seinfeld number crunch.
Obviously he knows every 20 minutes. He looked it up.
Well, I think it was in their commercials though, for a while, like they'd be like, always fresh.
We always pour out. I seem to recall that being like, you'd even see a shot of them dumping the coffee in the commercial.
Right. Just dumping out that coffee while some like freezing cold homeless person watches.
20 minutes is that's a pretty quick turnaround.
It's always fresh. That's their thing.
And by the way, when we dump this out, we're not giving it to anybody for free.
It's going straight down the drain, right down the sink.
Your breath is sweet. Your eyes are like two jewels in the night.
Your back is straight. Your hair is smooth on the pillow where you lie.
But I don't sense affection, no gratitude or love.
Your loyalty is not for me, but to the stars above.
One more cup of coffee for the road.
One more cup of coffee for I go.
To the valley below.
Between us, Jake's worked at Papa John's. I worked at Quiznos. Seinfeld worked at Tim Hortons.
Nick, you never got in the corporate food world?
No, I worked at the Pentagon in high school.
Jesus Christ. That's amazing.
That's the ultimate franchise.
The Pentagon cafeteria.
Yeah, I worked at the Starbucks in the Pentagon cafeteria.
No, this is a story probably for another time, but you know that's when I worked with Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp.
It was during my period at, I worked as an intern at the Pentagon for the Department of Defense.
Wow, you had a proper Washington DC upbringing.
I did. My brother worked as an ice cream scooper for Ben and Jerry's.
Okay. And then was fired after he locked himself in the walk-in freezer.
Whoa. So what year were you at the Pentagon?
It would have been '97.
So before, so Monica had been fired from the White House and was at the, or whatever, let go unceremoniously and was at the Pentagon?
Yes, and I was there when everything went down with Linda Tripp.
So this was after the affair with Bill, but before the news broke.
Yes. Whoa. Yeah, no, this is heavy. This is almost for another, this is another light for like another time.
So did you have lunch and stuff with Monica?
Yes. Y'all still tight?
We are not. I ran into her one time years later.
I mean, this is almost like, it's almost like this has to almost get cut out.
Why does it have to get cut out?
Or it doesn't have to get cut out. No, no, no, for no, for no redacted reason other than.
Jake, it's classified.
You know, you guys know, have I, I've told you this.
No, you told me the story. I'm playing along because it's interesting.
I know, of course. I mean, I remember elements of this.
It's mind blowing.
I mean, do you want me to tell you the story quickly and we can decide later?
Of course. Yes.
So basically while at this, at the ages that you were working at a Quiznos or a Tim Hortons,
I got this job at the Pentagon for basically the quickest version of the story is,
because it almost would make no sense.
How would I get this job is that it's not unusual growing up in Washington, D.C.
that someone would get a job somewhere in politics working as some intern or page somewhere.
It's not totally unusual.
And I had an internship.
I applied for a lot of internships and I got one working for Bill Cohen,
who is a senator from Maine.
And I was one of, you know, many interns or whatever over the summer for him when he was a senator.
This is a high school summer, a high school summer.
OK. And this may be when I was a sophomore or a junior in high school.
OK. And he was going to retire.
So he said he announced his retirement.
And when he announced retirement, all these other people had real jobs.
And I was just, you know, a high school intern.
So everyone had to leave to go get real jobs, you know, continue their careers wherever they were.
And so I was one of just a very few handful of people that was like, OK, well, I'll stay on and help you.
Because as you're winding down, there's still to do around the office, you know, write constituents back, pack up boxes, whatever.
And while he was setting to retire and everyone had left, Bill Clinton asked him if he wanted to be, you know,
offered him the job as the secretary for the Department of Defense.
And so he basically said, anybody still with me?
And there was really three of us.
You could have some position when I go to the Pentagon.
And I was a junior going to become a senior in high school.
So I was 17 turning 18.
And I got an internship working for the Pentagon.
And it was crazy.
So every day after school, I would just go and work at the Pentagon.
And how would you get to the Pentagon from your school?
Take a subway?
Yeah. OK.
So to a subway, you'd get off, you'd walk to the Pentagon, you show your badge, I'd show my badge, I'd walk in.
And at first they got they got me a job in the Office of Public Affairs, which is essentially PR.
And when I started there, my boss was Linda Tripp.
Whoa, that's a trip as a trip.
And so and so I would go and I do just sort of, you know, like faxing and stuff.
And she, you know, like faxing, copying, whatever, like not like, you know, not, you know, just intern or get coffee type work.
Yeah. And then she was like, are you going to this company picnic?
Like on Saturday, I was like, I don't drive.
I wasn't planning on it.
I'm you know, I'm so much younger than anybody else who works here.
And she's like, I'll pick you up there.
Somebody I think you should meet.
And so I took a subway to Crystal City.
She picked me up. Linda.
Linda picked me up from the subway and she was like, we're going to go pick up someone.
And we picked up. She picked up Monica Lewinsky.
And we all, you know, the three of us went to this picnic together.
And I basically that's when I became friends with her and we would have lunch.
And like, that's where I got to know her.
And so she at that point, she was like in her mid 20s or something.
Yeah, she had to be out of college.
She was out of college. And she I mean, the most memorable thing about this story is she was like, well, what do you want to do?
And I said, I worked at the Senate and now I'm at the Pentagon.
I thought maybe I wanted to go into politics.
I just didn't know what I wanted to do.
So I was like, oh, maybe I'll go work for the Justice Department.
I don't know. And she's like, would you want to have an internship at the White House?
And I was like, yeah, but it's like impossible to get an internship at the White House.
You know, they actually like it just it's not even saying you apply for it.
It's like saying they like give to like like decorated like soldiers.
You know, like it's just not it's not like anywhere else.
Not like real interest. She goes and she goes, I can get you a job at the White House.
And you're like, how?
It was such a crazy thing to be told that I just I mean, to this day, I just remember someone saying that.
And she was just like, it was so casual.
She's like, I can get you out of the White House.
I was like, oh, oh, word.
And so then we sort of were friends.
And I became closer with Linda Tripp over this period.
And I did some really crazy project where they're all tell you about another time.
And then I went on vacation with my plan on 11.
I plan on 11 inside inside job.
I went on a teen year old.
I went on.
When I tell you the thing that I did, it was.
Yeah, yeah.
It was so crazy.
But I went on this vacation.
So I went on vacation and this is 90.
This is early.
This is 97 going into 98.
Yep.
And that's what it's December 97.
I come back beginning of January and Monica's gone.
Linda's gone.
It's everybody's gone.
Basically, like my homies, where'd they go?
And someone came up to me a friend who is, you know, had become or someone who
saw that I was the youngest person working there and they were higher level.
And they said, if anybody asks you, if you worked with Linda Tripp, you say no.
And just trust me, like you will not graduate high school.
And like you, like you, your life will be ruined.
That's all that they said.
Like she's not here.
And they intuited.
You cannot.
I mean, it's so crazy for me to tell this story.
I mean, Jake knows this and I've told him this, but they were like, basically,
like just in any press or anyone comes calling, you just didn't work with her.
It's, you know, you worked in the same place.
You don't know much about her.
Well, and then I went to college that September, October, and I was sitting in
the hall and carmenate, you know, where, you know, at Columbia and everyone,
it was the Monica Lewinsky was on, you know, or it was Bill Clinton saying,
didn't have sexual relations with that woman.
And it all kind of flooded into me.
I was like, oh, that's what I was experiencing because I also would like,
I would pick up like Linda's phone and Monica would call crying and she'd be
like, where's Monica.
It was just like all this stuff that was happening before then.
Like I didn't understand or pay attention to.
But basically I was part of the entire sort of dissolution of that relationship
because they were best friends.
Just very quickly for anybody.
I think everybody knows who Monica Lewinsky is, but if people don't remember
quite as well or Linda Tripp was her, her quote unquote friend who she knew
from working in DC who covertly recorded her and kind of played her.
Yeah.
And when all the news came out.
Yeah.
And everyone was like, why would she do this?
She's this evil woman.
She had some kind of political agenda and had no, you know,
basically was this cruel woman attacking and abusing Monica.
And my experience was while that all may have been true,
it's like this was a woman who in my experience was like, oh,
you're young here and she's young here.
You guys should hang out.
I really love both of you.
I mean, it was a very sort of maternal relationship.
I mean, that's the most I could offer this conversation is like whatever I
experienced was like so crazily, not the, it was not the public.
It was not the, it was not the, you know,
the media portrayal of that relationship.
And then you said you ran into Monica.
I did.
I ran into Monica years later at like some kind of conference and she was
like speaking at a conference.
She was like speaking engagement stuff.
And we talked about it and she like, I mean, it was like a different one.
I mean, she remembered you.
She remembered the experience.
She did not remember me, but I hadn't seen, I mean, you know,
whatever her life has been so traumatic and so wild, you know,
whatever we've gone through, whatever ups and downs,
I feel like there was probably a woman before what happened to her and when
what happened.
So like, it just was not like talking to somebody that you'd know.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah. That, that air is probably such a blur.
She became this national figure.
I had to deal with this like insane press and yeah, of course.
Yeah. And so that was, I did that.
I mean,
I just happened to fall into that instead of working in like food service.
Thank you for calling Papa John's on Powell. This is Jake.
How can I help you?
We have two large, two toppings available for 1299 at a two liter for one.
99.
John is in the basement mixing up the medicine.
I'm on a pavement thinking about the government,
the man in a trench coat badge out late off says he's got a bad call.
Once again,
paid off.
I got here.
Just something you did.
God knows when, but you're doing it again.
You better duck down the alleyway looking for a new friend.
The man in the coon skin cap and a pig pen wants $11 bills.
You only got Tim Horton's Papa John's Quiznos and the Pentagon.
We do like a shark tank style show.
We're the, the four.
I do remember.
Start the next great fast food chain.
I do remember this girl that I had just such a huge crush on asking her to come
meet me like for work for lunch.
And we're in high school and she's very cool.
I mean,
just even the idea that I would have her meet me at the Pentagon and like have
to get her signed in and all of that.
It is.
But I also feel like, I don't know,
maybe it didn't go over well.
Meet me at the Pentagon.
There's a lot of good song topics coming up this episode.
Falls fall.
Definitely meet the Pentagon.
I also wrote down pumpkin squirt.
It's like a weird weaned song.
Was the cafeteria at the Pentagon good?
Yeah.
I mean, it was good.
I mean, it wasn't like Panda express type stuff.
I don't, if I remember correctly, it wasn't like a mall.
Now a lot of people don't know this,
but the Pentagon cafeteria has the best chicken fingers in the whole DC
area.
Were there any franchises within the cafeteria?
Like was there a Mickey D's in the Pentagon?
You're asking me to remember something from so long ago and all this stuff
happened.
I'm looking up like a Sbarro.
I feel like there was, there was all that food, but it was not.
Not branded.
It was not branded.
It's also screwed up when you go to like a school, like a college,
or I've, I've, I've never seen it in person,
but I've heard that there's some high schools that have this where there's
just like a straight up like Mickey D's just like in the school.
I know I've mentioned this on TC before,
but I vividly remember the hospital my sister was born at in New Jersey
had a McDonald's.
So I was like, oh, screwed up.
So psyched.
Yeah.
There was a burger King in a hospital near where I used to live in Toronto.
It's just like,
like your wife has just given birth to your firstborn child and you're just
like coming back up from the cafeteria,
like a bag of like lukewarm French fries and like a Whopper.
Here you go, babe.
Love you.
Burger King at the hospital.
Here's a Whopper.
The smell is just wafting up to the maternity ward.
She's sort of like a French fry aroma.
They didn't have the onion rings.
Oh my God.
Meet me at the Pentagon.
I'll tell you what's been going on.
We'll go down to the food court.
I mean, I am picturing another movie now.
It's kind of like a licorice pizza style coming of age film.
Oh, I like this.
A young boy's friendship with an older woman.
But this rather than be set in the 1970s,
San Fernando Valley said in late nineties, D.C.
So we have, you know, the Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky scandal.
We have the planning of 9/11 happening.
It's very, very interesting film.
I actually feel like and again, we can cut this if this is too long, but because I, a couple of things.
This is like something that's more interesting than pumpkin spice latte.
Great.
So, okay, I'm going to tell you what my job was.
I'm going to tell you what my job was there because it actually does.
It is related.
It's related.
It's not relatable content, but it's there's there's something in here that relates to this.
So basically there was a project at the Pentagon called the Joint Civilian Orientation Conference, the J.C.O.C. for short.
And the purpose of this was essentially this giant marketing tool for the Pentagon to get sort of influential people to experience the military sort of top to bottom.
Like every aspect of the military, like all of the you know, from the way you would say it from the meet the secretary of defense all the way to the guy that swabs the deck
somewhere and just get them on a giant seven day trip to sort of see all the amazing things the military does.
And this is, you know, which essentially is to fly people of influence, people that owns newspapers, whatever, do everything that someone does from land on an
aircraft carrier, fly in a jet, shoot like an influencer trip before they had the words influencers.
But for before they had influencers.
So Hollywood directors.
For Rupert Murdoch.
For the Murdochs. And yeah, there's you know, I think that that was where they were looking and there was a bunch of, you know, sort of older, probably more kind of
conservative heads invited on the trip.
They said, we feel like we're pretty underrepresented in the kind of lo-fi indie rock category.
Is there anything you've been listening to lately?
Well, that was sort of what they said.
And that's how Robert Pollard.
They said, you know, because you're the youngest person here, we want to put you in charge of inviting people on this trip.
Wow.
And expanding the guest list of this trip.
And I said, well, there's someone who I think I really, I think I personally would really love to go on this trip.
Jay Manascus.
Jerry Seinfeld.
Wow.
No.
I swear to God.
Full circle.
I swear to God.
That's why I was looking at Seinfeld. I was like, oh, maybe I will say what I did.
Oh my God.
So I talked to Seinfeld.
I talked to his people.
I got his credit card.
I got the, he was doing the American Express ads.
And like, I got his American Express for anything that they would need.
I mean, I went, he was going to go on this trip.
Wow.
Whatever happened, he ended up not going.
But like, I forget who else.
I think I actually told Hannah and Jake at one point, some of the other people.
But I so specifically remember the experience with getting Seinfeld to go on this trip and trying to lock him in.
And I think I also was like, I want to get Bruce Spree on this trip.
I mean, there's no way when I think of it as an adult, like this is such a, it's such a, it's brutal.
Even the idea is very brutal.
Yeah, it's enlisting civilians of influencers to, you know.
To do this really exciting fun propaganda.
Propaganda.
The mythology.
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm 17 years old.
I'm 18 years old.
I don't really understand.
And so then this is what happened.
The Monica and Linda stuff happened.
I didn't understand.
And she disappeared.
They confiscated her computer.
Monica was gone.
And me and this one other intern, a woman named Lindsay, who was in college level, maybe 22 years old or just out of college, were the two last people left on this trip.
So I was in charge now of this, like, I don't know, $50 million trip or whatever.
So I did it.
I went.
You went on this trip?
I went on the trip.
I landed on an aircraft carrier in like a Top Gun jet.
I shot giant guns.
This is crazy.
I know.
I went.
Seven days I went and experienced the Coast Guard, the Marines, the Navy.
I went in a submarine.
Like, I did these things that just no one gets to do.
Did you spend the night on the aircraft carrier?
Yes.
And when we landed on the aircraft carrier, we did the touch and go in the jet, you know?
And it was like some older woman who was probably from Knight Ridder newspapers threw up on me right behind me.
Because, you know, you land and if you don't catch the rubber band, just like in Top Gun, you have to take right back off.
So we did like four touch and go's before landing.
Like, I did all of this stuff at like 18 years old.
It was genuinely insane.
And I wasn't going to go on it, but then no one was around to do it.
So what did Lou Barlow think of all this?
I'm a little bit disappointed that what you pick all these like older guys.
I mean, I guess maybe you needed to read the room, but like there you are, young hip hop, lo-fi indie rock fan.
I was actually thinking RZA probably would have gone.
Like I wasn't thinking straight.
I read the room.
How did you not invite RZA?
RZA would have gone.
Nick, do you have any ideas?
And you're like, I do have a few ideas.
Let me read them down.
RZA, GZA, Ghostface Killer, Raekwon the Chef, Method Man.
Tell me how many slots you have because I have about seven people.
[Laughter]
Wu-Tang, Wu-Tang Killer Beast, we're on a swarm.
The RZA, the GZA, old Dirty Bass and Inspector Dick.
You've got Ghostface Killer, the Method Man, Raekwon the Chef, the Master Killer,
Messiah, the Vaughn, Power Cipher, 12 O'Clock, 62nd Assassin, the Fourth Disciple, the Brave 20,
KD the Download Wrecker, Shahid, AKA the Rugged Child, the New Litt, Mr. Hezekiah,
better known as the Ying and the Yang, the True Master, I Share, DJ Skain, the True Born God
coming through, Slice, the Mixer Blast, a mother[expletive] man wise and civilized,
the childish soldiers, Daddy-O, Papa-Ron, coming down for the mother[expletive]
sump in the face, Chillabee's the one with the [expletive] plan,
doesn't say chain with the death, the counting of sticks and the cleaves of effective styles,
shot with a [expletive] and all these things, and everything's gold, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens,
Staten Island and the mother[expletive] farms, Chillabee.
So Jerry was supposed to stay for seven?
Jerry, we got very far along, so much so that I remember, like, for whatever reasons
needing his American Express and getting the American Express, and just,
it was the time that Jerry Seinfeld was doing the American Express commercials.
With Superman.
Yeah, and just thinking, "This is incredible."
So, you were in touch with Jerry's people?
Yes.
And then at the end of it, Jerry was like, "Eh, the military."
Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
It's funny, we got so far down, and I'm thinking with who else, but yeah, I think that
at some point, I mean, obviously the optics are insane now, and no one would get that far along,
you know what I mean? Like, at some point someone would be like, "I don't know if you want to
have this on social media that you went and did this," but obviously it was a different time.
Well, a lot of people would love to have that on their social media.
Yeah, but I think that even then, it's just interesting to think about.
"Tyler the Creator issues apology after US military propaganda trip."
Guys, I'm sorry, some random 15-year-old kid in DC invited me on this.
I thought it was kind of like a cool punk rock thing. I was so wrong.
I mean, you know.
I got a DM from a 15-year-old.
A friend of the show, Kid Rock, would totally jump at that opportunity.
Right, of course.
He'd love it.
Oh my God.
That's amazing, man.
I haven't thought about this in so long. I mean...
I've never heard the part about the...
The trip.
...the booking the trip and doing the trip.
Do they still do this? This is how marketing works?
I'm going to look it up. This is, yeah, the joint civilian...
I mean, it's probably a bit more sophisticated.
I mean, I always just assumed that so much of this stuff also just works with a major reporter at a major newspaper
having a contact who they get to know really well,
who basically takes them out for lunch at the Pentagon.
It's like, "Oh, you got to try the chicken fingers," and then say, "I'm really not supposed to tell you this,
but we got some pretty serious intel on whatever I want you to think."
And they're like, "Oh, for real? Can I talk about that?"
"You probably... Okay, here. I'll let you talk about your newspaper as long as you just say, 'Sources at the Pentagon.'"
"Okay, thanks, man. You're really doing me a solid."
I never looked it up.
You know, defense.org/jcoc.
The JCOC is DoD's oldest and most prestigious public liaison program.
Established in 1948 as the only Secretary of Defense-sponsored outreach program
that enables American business and community leaders to have the full immersive experience with their military.
I mean, I just have a feeling people are going to start roasting me on Twitter for even talking about doing this.
No. Who cares, dude?
You were a kid.
I definitely was like, "I was a kid, and I did not expect to do any of this stuff."
What a funny world. I mean, they definitely put a 17-year-old in charge of this project.
That's insane.
You were put in charge of the project because of Monica and Linda being basically apprehended by the FBI.
Yeah, totally. I mean, we were so far along because it was happening just two or three months later.
That's wild.
I mean, it does sound like licorice pizza meets Almost Famous meets War Games meets Con Air.
Con Air.
All right.
It's time for the Top 5 on iTunes.
This week on the Top 5, what are we doing? I actually don't know.
2003. We're doing this week in 2003 versus the global rock charts or whatever. What is it?
Global hit music chart.
Wait, what?
There goes getting out of here on time.
Somebody needs to explain this.
What are we doing?
We're doing something complicated.
It's the top global rock music streams, right? Digital stream downloads.
It's purchased rock MP3s.
I think Matt, you got to jump in here.
It's the rock digital sales chart.
LimeWire presents the MP4.
This is because we talked about the rock digital sales charts because Murder Most Foul was number one on it.
We're doing the Top 5 from this week in 2003 versus the Top 5 on whatever the chart is for 2022.
Okay. All right. You guys were just joking. Okay.
I was joking around. I don't know the name of the chart.
It's something very Orwellian.
It's just the global.
The Apple Music Global chart.
The Big Brother chart.
Yep. The Big Brother Global chart.
This week on the Top 5, we're doing Speed Mode.
Yep.
Because we got places to be all around the world.
We're looking at 2003.
To see my brother play at Zebulon after we finish recording.
Oh man, there's a DP show?
Not a DP show. Dave's doing some songs with a buddy of his.
Kind of informal. I think it's a free show at Zebulon tonight.
Interesting.
Yep.
Acoustic?
I don't know.
But I'm going to go. And then I'm seeing Little Wings tomorrow night.
Oh word.
And then I'm seeing LA Takedown on Friday night.
This is a busy music week for me.
Wow.
Stacked.
Yep.
Damn. Wish I was in LA for that.
All right.
2003. The number 5 song this week in 2003.
Fabulous.
Into You featuring Tamiya.
I mean this is a great song, but it's also a remake of her song So Into You from 1998.
1998.
Great vibe.
I like it.
I always really liked Fabulous. I always thought he was kind of an underrated rapper.
Just like a laid back, almost disinterested delivery.
Yeah, pretty kind vibe.
Good lyricist.
I think it's interesting with him because he's been very big, but I feel like he's been so consistent for so long because he never got too big.
Yeah.
Sort of like his own kind of legacy act.
Like really few people have this kind of longevity.
And I do think it's because he sort of has maintained, like him and Fat Joe, I mean Fat Joe's huge, but they've been doing this for so long.
Like he'll still put out songs.
I'm so into you.
I really like what you've done to me.
I can't really explain it.
I was hoping to invite you.
This is a great vibe.
I don't know.
Let's keep moving.
We don't got anything to say about it.
Jake's got somewhere to be.
I love the sound of that song.
It was great.
I don't have a hot take.
It sounded great.
It sounded like an oldie.
Yeah, great vibe.
And feels pretty fresh in a way.
Number five song right now in 2022, Bad Bunny, "Titi Me Pregunto."
Jake, do you know who Bad Bunny is?
No, I've heard the name, but I don't know who it is.
One of the biggest artists on the planet right now.
What's the story?
First of all, this is the best selling album of 2022 so far.
He's in the new movie "Bullet Train" acting.
Yeah.
Is he American or what's his story?
Where's he from?
Puerto Rico?
Yes.
Yeah.
So sort of American?
You're an American citizen if you're from Puerto Rico.
Territories.
[rapping in Spanish]
It's cool.
Let's keep moving.
2004, 2003, 50 Cent, P.I.M.P.
I mean, this was huge.
Oh, yeah.
[rapping in Spanish]
This album, the first 50 Cent album,
"Get Rich or Die Trying,"
just an all-time classic.
One of those classic debut albums.
So many hits.
Classic album title, too.
Yeah.
[rapping in Spanish]
You don't hear so much steel drum
in pop music these days.
Underutilized instrument.
Yeah, it came back a little bit
with some, like, the new, like,
in some, like, reggaeton
and some kind of, like, tropical pop.
Yeah, yeah.
Remember the Jamie XX had a period
where he was using a lot of steel drum.
Maybe it already--
Steel drum comes and goes
in mainstream music
every five to six years.
[rapping in Spanish]
There's a great steel drum solo
in that Hollies song, "Carry Ann."
[rapping in Spanish]
The Hollies?
Yeah, it's about 40 years before--
or 35 years before this song.
[rapping in Spanish]
All right, hold on.
Let's throw that on.
Hollies, "Carry Ann."
Great steel drum solo.
Jake just hosting, like,
a local radio show somewhere.
That was 50 Cent with P-I-M-P.
Of course, as you all know,
that spells "pimp."
Anyway, it got me thinking
about the Hollies
and that great steel drum solo
in "Carry Ann."
So, anyway, here are the Hollies
with "Carry Ann."
Let's take it back to 1967
for "Carry Ann."
[upbeat music]
This is a weird version.
[whispering]
I'm hearing the steel drum,
but this is a weird version.
[upbeat music]
'57 to this is sick.
[laughs]
[upbeat music]
I think that's Graham Nash
doing that really high part.
Whoa.
Do you know this song?
No.
[upbeat music]
♪ Play the monitor ♪
♪ I played the janitor ♪
[upbeat music]
Oh, yeah, yeah, I know
this song, dude.
Yeah, sure, sure.
[upbeat music]
There might even be
a steel drum kind of low
in the mix here.
But there's a solo later?
Yeah, very prominent.
But I think it's the steel drum
even low in the mix
that I'm hearing now
for the first time
during the verses.
[upbeat music]
Let's go, folks.
[upbeat music]
Oh, nice.
[upbeat music]
Hey, Carrie Anne.
I don't know what you heard
about me.
[upbeat music]
♪ What's your game? ♪
♪ Somebody's to play ♪
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
Let's get back to modern times.
That was the Hollies.
We just heard 50 Cent with P.I.M.P.
followed by the Hollies with Carrie-Anne.
Now, a new song that's burning up the charts.
This one from Japan,
Ado with New Genesis,
Uta.
We used that word twice today on the show.
That Uta's song or music.
Uta from One Piece film, Red.
♪ ♪
One Piece is like a huge anime manga series about pirates.
And I guess there's a new movie.
I think this is the first time
I remember there being a Japanese song in the top five.
Definitely.
♪ ♪
How many of you guys have ever seen an episode of One Piece?
Seinfeld, you probably have, right?
Yeah, I have.
And in fact, my partners that I work with on making TV stuff,
they're doing the One Piece live action series.
They got the rights to One Piece.
It is the biggest, I think by a country mile,
it is the biggest anime series ever,
is my understanding.
It's huge.
And I guess, yeah, they've just been doing it forever.
I think there's a new manga every week.
Yeah.
So is it going to be like a Japanese production?
It's an American production.
Western version.
I assume it will be...
Starring Adam Driver?
Starring Adam Driver.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
You guys psyched for that Adam Driver-led
White Noise adaptation?
Oh.
I guess that's a no.
I read the book back in the day.
I'll check it out.
How about you?
You saw it?
No, no, no.
The trailer really just...
Oh, I didn't see the trailer yet.
All right, let's keep moving.
It's so 80s, crazy.
In 2003, the number three song was Chingy with "Right Thurr."
Remember this one?
Oh, yeah.
So that's been coming out around the same time as Nelly's Hot in Hurr?
Yeah, Hot in Hurr is maybe like a year before.
Yeah, Chingy, bit of a one-hit wonder.
Didn't T.I. used to be really...
Somebody used to be really mean to Chingy.
He had some beefs.
Mean.
I used to be mean to him.
All right, well, we won't be mean to you on this show, Chingy.
Sounds great, dude.
Congratulations on "Right Thurr."
It sounds great, sounds fresh.
Almost next year's the 20th anniversary.
Hope you do something special.
Number three song this week in 2022, another Bad Bunny song,
with Chincho Corleone called "Me Porto Bonito."
Did we listen to this one once?
Bad Bunny recorded the track right after he attended the Met Gala in New York,
straight to the studio.
Chincho Corleone's got a cool voice.
I wonder, when they say that he recorded it right after he attended the Met Gala,
do you think they mean he literally did it that night or the next day,
or that he wrote the song?
The song was conceived at the Met Gala in his head.
Because it translates to "I'll behave myself."
I'm picturing late night, like, "Yo, can they open the studio at 4 a.m.?"
For you, Bad Bunny, of course.
I'm picturing right in there.
Do you think he left the gala early, when inspiration struck?
Or do you think he's just out and he's like, "All right, guys, time now to go to the studio."
He skipped dessert.
He wanted to go straight to the studio.
Yeah, he was in Peter Pinoch, so box that up for me.
The number two song this week in 2003, I remember this era well.
I mean, huge, huge song.
Beyoncé, "Crazy in Love," featuring Jay-Z.
Classic start.
Is that a sample?
Yeah, it's from some, like, '70s soul song.
Oh, here's kind of a ShyLight track.
Yeah, I vividly remember this.
I think I just finished, or was about to finish, my first year of college.
This song came out, I remember just being like, "This is incredible."
Hearing it everywhere felt very exciting.
Can we check out that ShyLight's track?
Everybody knows "Crazy in Love." Let's hear the original.
"Are You My Woman? Tell Me So," from 1970.
Tasteful palette.
Well, it's the same groove, too.
Mm, sort of.
Yeah, this song goes to a totally different place.
Yeah.
I wonder, does that part come back in again?
Oh, yeah.
A little voice comes in.
A great sample.
Alright, ShyLight.
I do have to point out in the "Crazy in Love," there's the classic Jay-Z verse,
where he references Tony Soprano, making this a very perfect early 2000s artifact.
What's the reference exactly?
He says, "Stick bony," I'm not looking this up, this is from memory, so I could be a little bit wrong.
He says, "Stick bony, but the pockets is fat like Tony Soprano.
The rock handles like Ben Neck." I forget, I don't know what he says there.
Yeah, so he goes, "Stick bony, but the pockets is fat like Tony Soprano."
So, you know, picture 2003. Soprano's the greatest show of all time.
Beyoncé, beginning one of the greatest solo careers of all time.
Jay-Z, one of the greatest rappers of all time, all together, right there in 2003.
I wonder what Jay thought of "The Many Saints of Newark."
Heated it.
I wonder if he watched it.
He watched it.
"But the pockets is fat like Tony."
Okay, the number two song this week.
DJ Khaled, "Staying Alive" featuring Drake and Lil Baby.
Oh yeah, I saw he has a new album out.
Amazing album title, "God Did."
Oh yeah.
"God Did."
He always has the best titles. He had famously, "Suffering From Success."
Big swingers on this whole album. Really incredible.
"Suffering From Success" almost is like, it's borderline like hair metal band album title.
But "God Did" is truly like, out there.
That's great.
"God Did."
Oh, I see that the Gibb brothers are credited songwriters.
Have we heard the sample yet?
Well, Drake is singing it in his Drake way. I think he just did.
Yeah, I think he did too.
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This is from the Bad Boys 2 soundtrack.
I love shouting out the movie at rules.
Bad Boys 2 soundtrack.
Track 5.
Say what you will about Nelly, he really has a great voice.
Like, charismatic vocalist.
Peter Dukes the film soundtrack.
Wait, what year is Peter Dukes the movie set in?
It's like late 90's right?
Oh, it's '03 right?
Oh, perfect.
I mean, maybe the back story starts in the mid 90's.
But if Nelly's gonna shout out the year that it takes place, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Perfect.
Peter Dukes the movie.
(laughter)
Is the movie called Peter Dukes the movie, colon, the movie?
(laughter)
Peter Dukes the movie, the soundtrack.
Every movie that's named after somebody should have to be colon the movie.
Michael Clayton, the movie.
Aaron Brockovich, the movie.
Well this song certainly sounds like 2003.
Alright, let's move on.
What so far is that first song, that fabulous song?
That was a great vibe. I mean, Crazy in Love is a classic.
Oh true, yeah, that's a classic.
But that was a very 2003 slice of culture right there.
If someone was like, "Jake, go home, you have to listen to one song from the top five tonight."
On repeat.
It's fabulous.
I'm going with that fabulous.
I'm throwing that on.
Yeah, it's relaxing, great vibe.
Me too.
The number one song this week on the Apple Music Global Supply Chain chart is DJ Khaled.
Oh look at this, Jake. It's the title track from God Dead.
God Dead.
Featuring Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Jay Z, John Legend, and Friday.
Not bad advice, God.
DJ Khaled!
The Jay Z verse in this, I saw an Instagram post about, is so long that they count every bar.
He does 80 bars.
Whoa.
It's like a...
Is it being well received?
I think so.
I mean, she told me she saw some other post that said that it was a masterclass.
I mean, that the Jay Z verse specifically is a masterclass.
Khaled!
How long is this whole song?
It's too long. I don't think we're going to listen to this all day and get Jake out on time.
Really? How long is the song?
It's an eight minute song.
How about this? Eight minutes?
Eight minutes.
It's an eight minute Cape Cod.
Is it an eight minute God Dead?
Is it an eight minute God Dead?
New t-shirt alert, eight minute God Dead.
All right, well let's say goodbye now and just listen quietly.
Let it play out.
This has been Time Crisis.
Please listen to the number one song on Apple Music right now, God Dead.
And I want you to pay special attention to the very long Jay Z verse.
We'll see you in two weeks. Peace.
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