Episode 216: In The 2000s
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Transcript
Time Crisis, back again.
The early 2000s, the start of the new millennium, a new era in indie music,
and a time to move into your grandma's computer room.
Four men in their 40s chop it up about life, purpose, chilling, and indie.
This is Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
Check it!
Time Crisis.
Hey, what's up? We're back again.
This feels weird with me doing this.
Jake, what's going on?
We're banking, dude. We are remote.
It's late at night and we are banking.
Just for anybody wondering, Ezra is on this show.
He's just asked us to kick it off.
I'm just finishing my ice cream.
Jake, go ahead.
The flagship of the brand is hitting the road for bulk of the summer,
so we are trying to bank as much as we can.
Banking the Eps.
Yeah, I don't know when you'll hear this, but banking the Eps.
We're banking the Eps.
Probably soon.
You know, with these banked Eps, we try to keep things somewhat evergreen.
You know, we're not going to be talking about the Kendrick Drake beef, for instance.
You don't know when we're recording this.
For all we know, it just kicked off.
[laughs]
You might have already forgotten about it by now.
Either we're recording this when it just kicked off, or for all you know, it's already over.
And nobody knows when something like that will end, so who knows?
But we're not going to talk about stuff like that.
This stuff that people think is so interesting for a week,
maybe you'll reflect on it at the end of the year, but, you know,
we're trying to go a little bit further back, a little more evergreen.
[rapping]
So, you know, we're racking our brains to come up with excellent topics for a banked Ep.
Because, first of all, I want to say there's absolutely no reason why a banked Ep cannot be top-tier TC.
Oh, no reason at all.
These could be some of our best episodes.
We don't need to always be current.
I mean, I think our Michael Azarad interview that has already aired, that was a banked Ep.
Absolutely.
Top tier.
Seinfeld's Guide to Taylor Swift was a banked Ep.
Maybe Seinfeld, now's the time if you want to apologize.
Oh, my God.
I didn't mean to misinform the viewership.
I was getting a lot of my facts from the scoop.net, which I don't know if you're familiar,
but it's an up-and-coming entertainment gossip website that I won't be referring to again as a primary source.
So for anyone who's misled, anybody who told their friends that Taylor Swift's first name
was actually Penelope, I was duped as were you, and I'm sorry that I passed that misinformation along.
It won't happen again.
Nelly Swift.
You're a Swifty, too.
Died in the wool, Swifty to the bone marrow.
And so it's doubly embarrassing to both forsake the integrity of the show
and also betray one of the top music artists of our day.
And to also betray Penelope Taylor Swift.
Heir to the Swiffer.
Heir to the Swiffer, which had fortune.
All right, well, we'll see how this goes.
But my idea for today's banked Ep was to talk about a decade that I think often gets short shrift on this program.
Obviously, we talked quite a bit about the tasteful palette of the 1970s.
Top 5 often takes us into the 80s, the 90s.
We have a lot of reminiscences about.
We have our famous Gen X 90s battles between Jake and Rashida.
But, you know, one era that I feel like we rarely go deep in is the 2000s.
And I want to correct that today.
So let's take it to the 2000s.
And what I threw out that this episode could be about 2000s era indie.
I don't know if that's too narrow, but I think let's start there.
Shoots too narrow.
Those shoots might be a little too narrow, but let's see.
I mean, first of all, let's get the rules of the game set.
Are we counting the start of the 2000s as the year 2000 or the year 2001?
2000.
Okay.
You count the zero years.
I kind of do as well.
Starts with a two, not a one.
What if you're talking about the year 10?
Yeah.
You know, like when you count from one to 10, 10 feels like the final year of the decade you just counted.
No, it goes zero to nine with years.
All right.
Well, I guess that's the whole thing is that there was no year zero.
Poor planning.
Would your concern maybe be if we're doing music that a lot of that music might have been made in 2000 would have been made in 99.
And so maybe you wouldn't have that 2000 energy.
So, you know what I mean?
That's interesting.
Still has it.
Not really.
Let's go around.
Jake, I want to start with you.
Do you remember where you were January 1st, 2000?
The start of the new millennium, debatably.
Boston, Massachusetts.
Boston?
Mm-hmm.
Did New Year's 99 in Boston.
Interesting.
Was hanging with my best friend from middle school and high school, John Joyce.
Oh, yeah.
We've heard about John Joyce before.
You guys had a band together?
Yeah.
We had Vince Chlortho together.
Yeah, man.
He was living in Boston.
I don't remember how it panned out that way.
Had you graduated college by then?
Yes.
Yeah, I graduated in May 99.
So, I was, I guess, seven months out from college graduation.
Wow.
So, the changing of the millennium really corresponded with a key moment in your own
life.
Absolutely.
When you graduated college, was the commencement speaker being like, "As the final graduates
of the 20th century--"
I'm sure.
"You have so much to look forward to.
The 2000s will be an epic era for you to begin your careers."
I'm sure that's what it was.
I have zero recollection of my graduation ceremony.
And I was stone cold sober.
Yeah.
It was that innocuous.
No idea who spoke.
No, maybe you were just so in your head, you just tuned out all the speakers.
You're just thinking like, "Man, this is f*cking crazy.
I'm a f*cking college graduate and we're about to enter the 2000s?
It's going to be insane."
I hope that job application I put in at Papa John's pans out.
[laughs]
Wait, so when you graduated college, you stayed in Portland?
Yeah, I lived in Portland until summer 2003.
And actually, when I was putting together my little playlist of 2000s indie rock,
I decided instead of like, yeah, I listened to The Shins,
and I liked The Shins a lot, and I listened to The Strokes.
Great band.
But for this playlist, I decided to go hyper local.
Bands of people that I was friends with or knew a little bit,
or bands I was in, in the Pacific Northwest,
or bands I toured with between 2000 and 2003.
You were really at the heart of it.
I think, Jake, of everybody on this program, you have the most indie credentials.
I don't know. Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting fight to have.
I'm seeing Nick put up some resistance in his facial expression there.
Oh, no, no, I mean, that was a hard agree.
Well, I've just been in a lot of bands, and I was never like a central figure
in any of these scenes, but I've just been in bands and know a lot of musicians.
And yeah, I mean, Ezra, for you, it's different.
I mean, you played in a few bands in college, and then fresh college graduate.
Sold out.
[laughter]
You got a job at Goldman Sachs right after graduation, essentially.
That's right.
It's a different scene. It's a different thing.
I was jealous of the people who did.
That was a moment in my life when I graduated college,
or I've actually been telling this story a lot as I've done press the last few months,
and people just inevitably take you back to the early days of the band.
Or how were you feeling back then?
And one thing I always say is I very distinctly remember the feeling
of graduation approaching and A, realizing that I had tens of thousands
of dollars in student loans, which I just don't think I'd ever really thought about.
And the truth is I didn't have to pay an absurd amount monthly,
but even just basically having no money and then just suddenly thinking,
"Wait, I'm in debt? Tens of thousands of dollars threw me for a loop?"
And then also hearing about all the people at my school,
Columbia sends a lot of people into finance,
and a lot of people were going to work at Goldman Sachs,
and they were some of the last people to go work at Lehman Brothers.
Amazing timing.
Wait, what year did you graduate college?
'06.
Oh, wow. '06. Interesting.
So Lehman, I think Lehman Brothers went, when did that go under? '08?
Yeah, like fall of '08 during that crisis.
Right. So the young people working at Lehman then were essentially my classmates
or people I would have gone to school with.
But I remember hearing about all those people at that time
and the months before graduation, and I remember people would say,
"What are you going to do?" And I was like, "You know, I don't know."
And then people being like, "You know all those people working at Lehman
get a $10,000 signing bonus?"
And I just remember being like, "Insane. What?"
They just give them $10,000 and it's like, "Yeah, signing bonus. You just get it."
So just in your bank account, it's like, "Yeah, send you a check."
And they were like, "And that's just a signing bonus.
They also get year-end bonuses for performance."
And I was just like, "I don't know why."
It's like in many ways, I was--
Dude, well, sorry to interrupt.
I just remember when we were on that projectors tour in '05,
I guess you were going into your junior or senior year of college.
Yeah.
I guess you would have been going into--
Into my senior year, yeah.
Okay. And I remember you being like, "Yeah, maybe I'll get a job."
You were just dead-ass serious like, "Maybe I'll get a job in finance or something."
I remember you were like, "You didn't know what you were going to do."
And I remember thinking, "Man, don't do that. You're too cool for that, dude."
Start a band. Start an internet radio show.
[laughs]
Believe in yourself.
But then you emailed me some of the early Vampire demos,
and you were like, "Hey, we're coming to San Francisco.
Could you help us get a show, like in a backyard show or something?"
Right.
And I was like, "Yeah, cool." And I was like, "Oh, this is tight.
I'm glad this dude started a band and isn't working at Lehman."
Not that I knew what Lehman was.
And then a few months later, you were like, "Band's taking off."
And I was like, "Word."
Well, and also the sad truth is I'd already missed the boat probably to go work at Lehman.
Sad truth.
I actually-- I do know one guy who's very successful in finance who was an English major,
but even then he had already done summer internships and stuff, so he was on the track.
So yeah, I'd probably already missed the boat.
I could have gone to law school or something.
I wonder if I ever would have--
Law school, I don't know what it is now.
At the time, that was the most classic thing.
Oh, yeah.
Where it's like if you major in English or something, and you're trying to get more serious,
you're like, "I'll go to law school."
Yeah. I remember a college professor saying that.
They were like, "If you don't know what you want to do, go to law school."
Yeah, I don't think-- I don't know if they say that anymore.
At the time, they were like, "You can use that degree for a lot of things."
Yeah, yeah.
It's really hard to say.
I wonder if I ever would have gotten passionate about the law.
Such a sliding door--
Yeah, I mean, it's so crazy.
The band either doesn't work out or doesn't even start for whatever reason.
You don't meet Rostam or CT or Bayo or whatever.
It's just different chemistry.
The band sort of just doesn't do what it does,
and then you go to law school three years after graduating.
You start law school in '09.
You finish in 2012.
It's just like--
Man, what a weird, different path.
I see a mansard roof through the trees
I see a salty message written in the eaves
The ground beneath my feet
The odd garbage and concrete
Now the tops of buildings I can see them too
I see a mansard roof through the trees
I see a salty message written in the eaves
The ground beneath my feet
The odd garbage and concrete
Now the tops of buildings I can see them too
I wonder--
I mean, I know a lot of people who became lawyers and hate it.
Oh, yeah.
But I've also met successful lawyers who kind of live for it.
Those people tend to be a lot higher energy than me.
I don't know if I'd have the energy to be doing those long nights.
Yeah, well, one of your great passions is chilling, so--
No, for real.
Yeah, just doing document analysis at 4 a.m.
Yeah, that's what I always picture.
I picture young lawyers just being awake at 4 a.m., pouring over documents.
And I just feel like I'd be so tired.
You know what's funny, actually?
I have a distinct memory.
So tired.
[laughs]
I mean, I've always been low energy.
Maybe I could have figured out some other way to do it.
Obviously, the laws is interesting.
But I actually remember--
Speaking of sliding doors moments--
I remember maybe some year in college--let's say towards the end--maybe senior year,
and just, again, as much as I felt like I was kind of savvy about certain things,
I guess I just wasn't passionate about getting a great job or anything.
But I remember starting to look around and be like, "Wait, oh, yeah, you're supposed to get internships
or work in white-collar professions."
I made a little bit of money in college tutoring.
That was about it.
And I had a financial aid job working in the scanning slides in the art department or something.
I don't know.
But at some point I was like, "Oh, maybe I should get a more serious job."
So I was looking through listings that they had, and one of them was like,
"Intern copyist needed for legal firm."
And I was like, "Oh, right. Maybe this is the kind of thing you're supposed to do.
You make some money."
I was at the time probably $15 an hour, and I was like, "That's pretty good."
And anyway, I just remember in college I was on such a late schedule,
found it so hard to ever--if I had a class at 10 a.m., it was like torture waking up for that class.
So anyway, I remember I had an interview with a lawyer, and it was like--
and I remember I borrowed a nice sweater from my friend,
but I ended up staying up all night in some debate with somebody.
And then the next morning I woke up so tired.
I don't know if I had my coffee game quite dialed yet.
It was kind of hit or miss, and I'd beeline it down to this law firm
probably in the '50s on Park Avenue or something.
And I go, and I remember the guy was actually very warm and friendly,
and he was like, "Oh, nice to meet you. Oh, you go to Columbia.
I got some good friends who went there."
And we're shooting this [expletive] I was just so tired.
And he's like, "All right, all I need you to do is just type up this document."
And I just remember kind of being zoned out and typing it up,
and he came back in and looked at it, and I made like two mistakes.
And I just remember he looked at me with pity.
He was like, "Yeah, I'm sorry, man."
[laughs]
Like this is the kind of thing, you know, you kind of just have to nail it.
And I was like, "I hear you. Yeah, I think I was just tired."
And anyway, who knows? I remember that guy was very friendly,
and I kind of felt bad that I let him down. He wasn't a [expletive]
It's cool he was a straight shooter, and he wasn't like, "We'll call you."
Yeah, he was kind of like, "Oh, dude, you know, you had one job," kind of.
Just type this document absolutely correctly.
But yeah, who knows? That might have been the sliding doors moment.
Maybe if I'd become whatever, an intern or an assistant for this warm and friendly lawyer,
I have no idea what type of lawyer he was.
Maybe over time he would have become my mentor,
and maybe he would have been giving me the opposite advice of you, Jake.
I'd play him some Vampire Weekend demos, and he's just like,
"Honestly, man, I'm not hearing it. You lack the downtown grit of The Strokes.
The Songcraft is not at the level of The Shins or the other prominent indie artists of the day.
And I think you really have a bright future here at my law firm."
And I'd be like, "Thank you, sir."
Ezra, the music industry is a cutthroat business.
It's very competitive.
When you first came into my office and you absolutely perfectly, with zero mistakes,
nailed that document type up, I knew you had aptitude for this.
I'm not hearing it in this 07 Oxford comma dot mp3 that you're sending me.
Who gives an F about an Oxford comma? Ezra, we do.
Yeah, we do.
Who gives an F about an Oxford comma?
I've seen those English dramas too, their crew.
So if there's any other way to spell the word, it's fine with me, with me.
Why would you speak to me that way?
Especially when I always said that I haven't got the words for you.
All your diction dripping with disdain.
Through the pain I always tell the truth.
Who gives an F about an Oxford comma?
I climbed the Darmstadt or two.
I did.
I met the high slimer.
His accent sounded fine to me.
To me.
Check your handbook, it's no trick.
Take the chapstick, put it on your lips.
Crack a smile, adjust my tie.
Know your boyfriend, unlike other guys.
Why would you lie about how much coal you had?
Why would you lie about something dumb like that?
Why would you lie about anything at all?
First the window, then it's through the wall.
A little time, we always tell the truth.
Yeah, who knows, maybe even said, "And you know what?
You work in litigation for five years, and if you feel unfulfilled,
move out to LA and get into showbiz law."
[laughs]
You'd be like, "You know what's cooler than being a member of Interpol?
Being their lawyer."
Absolutely, sir.
I don't know, who knows, maybe.
Did you ever consider going white-collar, Jake?
Was that ever in the cards for you?
Nope.
Didn't have a plan B ever.
He's our most indie member.
Absolutely.
Yeah, you're too indie.
You're too generous and indie.
I graduated college, and I was like,
"I know that I'm going to have to figure out a way to make a living
for many, many decades.
I know people can make a living as artists.
I'm going to try to figure out how to do that,
and I know reading about history and artists that it can take a while."
So I had various day jobs until I was 38.
In fact, I was still working-- I still had a day job,
but I started doing Time Crisis with you guys.
Oh, really? Hanging art?
Yeah, I was doing art install at various galleries around LA.
Whoa.
And I think we've touched on this.
My final gig was doing a private install at Jay-Z and Beyoncé's rental home
in Beverly Hills.
Maybe that was just on the text thread,
but maybe we talked about it on the show.
I don't remember.
I think we only talked about this in the thread, right?
Yeah, I was working for this company-- oh, yeah, this guy.
The listeners will enjoy this.
This guy, Brian, who had been a former actor,
who then started-- he started a private art installation company.
To be clear, an actor in the TNBC sitcom One World.
Thank you. You have a better memory than I do.
I had to do a little research when we were texting about this.
And so, yeah, he would hire a crew of guys to go, like, you know,
get a box truck, go to a warehouse, pick up a collector's art collection
that's in storage, drive it to their house, unload it, uncrate the art,
bring the art into the house, place the art,
consult with either the interior decorator, the art consultant, or the owner.
In this case, Jay-Z and Beyoncé.
Although it was a rental home, but it was their art collection.
And then hang the art.
And they were there that day.
I guess it was a two-day job, actually. They were there.
It wasn't their, like, primo stuff.
But I think Jay-Z has, like, bosque yachts and, like, really crazy high-end stuff.
And Picasso?
Remember he had a son called Picasso Baby?
Oh, yeah. I wouldn't surprise me.
Is that about owning a Picasso?
Wait, Jake, I gotta ask you, though. Did you sign an NDA that day?
I don't think so.
I mean, yeah, they were around, minimal interaction.
I do remember, like, me and this other dude hanging this, like,
pretty heavy painting over the mantel place above the fireplace.
Kind of like, we're both on ladders and kind of, like, straining to, like,
hold the art up and get it on the hardware that we had installed into the wall.
And, like, Jay-Z kind of ambling into the room and kind of, like, just
standing there and just kind of staring at us.
Picture Jay-Z voice. He's going, "What up, fellas?"
[Laughter]
I can't do a Jay-Z impression.
But you guys, every listener in their head can imagine it.
And you were like, "Hello, Mr. Carter."
Yep, basically.
♪ I just want a Picasso in my casa, no, my castle ♪
♪ I'm a hossa, no, I'm a asshole ♪
♪ I'm never satisfied, can't knock my hustle ♪
♪ I want a Rocco, no, I want a Braco, no ♪
♪ I want a wife that be like a prostitute ♪
♪ Let's make love on a million in a dirty hotel with the fan on the ceiling, uh ♪
♪ All for the love of drug dealing, uh ♪
♪ Marble floors, uh, gold ceilings, uh ♪
♪ Oh, what a feeling ♪
♪ Kid, I want a billion ♪
♪ Jeff Korn balloons, I just want to blow up ♪
♪ Condos in my condos, I want to roll up ♪
♪ Christie's with my missy, live at the MoMA ♪
♪ Bacon's and turkey bacon, smelly aroma ♪
♪ Oh, what a feeling ♪
♪ Cotton, cotton, cotton, cotton, cotton, cotton, cotton, cotton, cotton, cotton, cotton ♪
♪ Oh, what a feeling ♪
♪ Cotton, cotton, cotton, cotton, cotton, cotton, cotton, cotton ♪
Are you wearing gloves in a situation like this?
Like, how are you touching the art?
Hands on?
Probably, yeah, probably wearing white cotton gloves.
Okay, good.
And then, yeah, Beyonce was there and their kid, Blue, is that their name?
Yeah, Blue Ivy.
That's their first child.
Right, I remember, and I remember my, the guy that ran the company, this guy Brian, was like pretending to be a robot.
He had, he was holding like a drill and he's going like, zzz, zzz, zzz, zzz,
and like pretending to be a robot and like cracking their kid up and, um, that was the final job I had in 2015.
Was that a stressful job?
Were you ever like, oh God, what if the art gets messed up or I drop it or something?
It could be, I mean, it would, I wasn't worried about dropping the art or messing it up,
but if the clients were stressed out and were giving off bad vibes, then that was stressful.
But Jay-Z and Beyonce were lovely and mellow and weren't like sweating us, you know what I mean?
Right.
Sometimes doing private installs, there's like an idle rich person that has nothing better to do than sort of like stress everyone out.
Be careful, be careful, don't touch that.
Yeah, or just kind of standing and like watching, loitering for like, just like basically watching people work.
Imagine just like, just like, like using the stud finder to find the studs or like putting in like, oh, this, this, this wall is actually concrete.
We need to actually get the masonry bit out and put in like these like heavy duty anchors.
This is going to take a while.
Oh, we like hit a weird part of the wall.
Like this is a soft part of the concrete.
The anchor is not going to hold.
Okay, we actually have to like, and then you have to patch that when you're done.
And we're like, yep, we know, like just that kind of vibe.
So you're good at patching walls?
Yeah, I'm not like some sort of construction expert, but I'm handy with basic tools, you know?
What if it's like a paint, like an unusual color paint or a wallpaper or something?
Wallpaper, that's a whole other, I don't mess with wallpaper.
I mean, if someone has to replace wallpaper, there's people that do that.
There are wallpaper people.
Right.
I mean, paint is just sort of hopefully they have in the garage, they have the paint there.
If not, I guess you have to like make a little chip and bring it to the store and have them match it.
But that's dicey.
And hopefully there's not too much patching or repainting anyway.
Yeah, I mean, usually those kind of houses, there's like a house manager that knows where like the paint is.
It's not a big deal.
But anyway, yeah, as you guys know, I was a certified forklift driver, so.
Right.
I'm handy with tools and some machinery.
I mean, you've always struck me as very easygoing.
You say that even from, you know, relatively early in your career, you knew the art history, you had an understanding.
It can take a long time to become a full time artist, to make it.
And you're okay with that.
Were there any times between age 22 and 38 where you were just like seriously stressing or being like, damn, this is taking a long time or?
Oh, yeah, definitely.
But even in those moments, did that make you consider anything else?
No, I mean, I think my lowest point was 2010, 2011.
We touched on this before, maybe in New York when I lived there for a few years.
Right.
But in the years in Oakland, I mean, it was.
Yeah, I mean, I didn't have a plan B, man.
You know, there's the stories of like actors like like Jon Hamm or someone who was like, I decided if I was like if I didn't make it, if I wasn't making a living by 35 or 30 or
whatever it was, then I would do something else.
I never did that.
Like, what am I going to do at like age 32?
Like, just like.
I'm throwing in the towel, I'm going to law school.
I don't know.
I wasn't married or.
People do that.
No, sure.
I wasn't married or had a kid or, you know, have a house or anything when I was 32.
So I don't know.
Right. So even at your lowest point, you were still just like, well, you didn't feel amazing, but you're just like, I have to just keep painting.
What else can I do?
Basically, I guess I'm going to have to do time crisis.
I mean, if I had if I had a kid or something, it might it probably be a different story.
Right. Yeah. You were a single guy.
Yeah.
In all these places, you had pretty cheap rent.
I mean, I remember when you first moved to L.A., you had that in that you had a roommate and your rent couldn't have been too much.
Right. I moved to L.A. in 2012.
I was thirty five.
I moved in with this random dude, Ryan, who ended up being a really good friend and is in Richard Pictures and Mountain Bruce.
But you had no connection to him at the time.
I didn't know him at all.
How did you find him?
Like I was crashing with my my second cousin who lived in Silver Lake and he was on a swim team or something like an adult intramural swimming club or something with like a
friend of Ryan's girlfriend.
And he had heard like, oh, there's this guy that friend of a friend needs a needs a roommate.
And so I went over like this is day three in L.A. and I was like, OK, I'll go check out the apartment.
It was on Normandy in Santa Monica.
That's where you came there a few times.
Yeah, it was by that street. Lemon Grove. Right.
Yeah, exactly. Parking in Lemon Grove.
And so I went I met Ryan and there was like a framed picture of Neil Young, like in the hallway.
I was like, OK, cool.
And then like he had a big record collection.
He had some like dirty projector stuff.
I was like, oh, do you have my brother?
He's like, no way.
And then he was like he made a good pitch.
He was basically listen, do the rents like six hundred.
Why don't you just move in? You don't like it.
You can move out.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Oh, yeah.
This is very interesting, this time period, because I imagine we probably have some listeners.
But we might have a listener right now who's thirty five.
Also, maybe they're focused on a dream.
Maybe they don't even have a dream.
They're not sure what they're doing.
But I think I always like hearing stories like this, you know, about all the different ways that people are living.
Being thirty five, moving to L.A., having a roommate, six hundred bucks a month rent.
You're probably not dropping too much on food and stuff.
So you really didn't need.
And like you said, you're single, no kid.
So, you know, you could probably make it by on, what, thirty grand a year less.
Something probably less.
Probably that first year. Hard to say.
But I have to say, once I I knew that I wanted to live in L.A.
So like things started to like kind of happen for me pretty quickly.
I was in the right town.
Right. You just knew it.
Because I yeah. Then so I stopped working in 2015.
So I only worked, I only had day jobs in L.A. for like two and a half, three years.
When you first moved in with Ryan, you were just so psyched to be in L.A.
You didn't you never you never got into some like I'm thirty five.
Like some people for sure, if they're thirty five, thirty five, just moved in with with at the time,
random dude roommate would be a little like what?
Oh, man. But at that point, you had a pretty you felt good.
I mean, I was psyched, but like, yeah, I was aware that like it definitely like not great optics.
I remember my parents like came and visited the apartment that I was living in with Ryan.
And they like met Ryan. And it turned out Ryan was born 10 days after me.
So it was like 35 year old dudes living in this like crappy apartment in East Hollywood.
Just like sitcom. Yeah. Just like a cool vibe.
You're right. It is. It is all optics.
And I mean, obviously, it's such a good lesson to stop caring about optics when you know you're actually enjoying yourself.
But I think 35 is an interesting age because at age 35, you're living in the way that a lot of 25 year olds live.
Exactly. Like if you if you met somebody who is 25 and they're like, oh, dude, I just moved into this apartment like with a random dude.
But he's cool. He's got a Neil Young poster. I just got to L.A.
I'm excited. You'd be like, wow, that sounds like a really exciting time in your life.
Full of potential and opportunity.
25 in a new city. Sounds awesome. Then you're 35 and you're kind of like, all right, it's you know, it's not it ain't over yet.
But then if you go another 10 years and you're like, well, 10 years ago I was doing this.
And then another 10 years later, what if it's two 45 year old dudes in the apartment in the apartment?
I mean, we're back to we're back to cool again.
I mean, at that point, the optics are so bad. If you're the optics are so bad that they're actually they actually kind of rule like you actually have to be so.
I think at that point you're just like, hey, it's cool. I met another 45 year old guy.
I don't know him at all, but he's got a cool spot. I moved into the extra room and get this.
He had a Neil Young poster. It's cheap, dude.
I lucked out. You know what, guys? Sorry. Lizzie's up. I have to go deal with this.
So that was my life story. So much has changed in those 10 years.
OK. Yeah. Now I have to go. Yeah. I'm solo dadding. Look at this.
For a while. And I think what happened to you, man. Back when you were 35, you're just drinking brews by a Neil Young poster.
Now you're taking care of a little kid. I'm sipping red wine, sipping red wine, taking care of children.
Now, do your thing. All right. I'll be back in a bit.
I'm feeling rough, I'm feeling wrong in the drama of my life.
Let's make some music, make some money, find some models for wives.
I'll go to Paris, shoot some heroin with the stars.
You and the Island and the cocaine and the elegant cars.
This is our decision to live fast and die young. We've got the vision. Now let's have some fun.
Yeah. So. I just rewatched swingers.
It's the best version of the 25 year old story you told.
And even then, they're sort of like, we're too old for this. It really captures the Hollywood apartment.
But I like doing that now where they still haven't made it and they're 35.
I mean, and obviously the ages change. Every generation, the ages get like crazier.
Like, yeah, you watch old movies where people are literally just like, dude, I'm 23 years old and I don't even know what job I want.
Like all my friends, you know, and then you're like, nobody would say that today.
People treat 23 year old like they're literally a toddler.
So even now it's like in another era, the two 35 year old dudes would almost read as like 50.
Yeah. Whereas today, and I guess also we're getting older, too.
So like if I met somebody who is 35 and just moved in. Yeah, I don't know.
I maybe they would read as 25 to me now. But you're right. In the swingers era, those guys are in their 20s.
And they're like, I got two more weeks of doing this. And if I don't get a job, I got it.
I got it. Essentially, I think he is like, I got to go become a lawyer. It's something like that.
But yeah, the third 35 is a weird danger zone. I'm actually with you at age 45.
Hopefully you've acquired enough life wisdom and stuff that you actually could be roommates with a random 45 year old dude and just like be zen about it.
Yeah, I think that you're back to the point of being like, we're just having a blast, guys.
I think that, yeah, you've gone through the awkward zone.
I mean, I definitely have a feeling like in my 20s and my early 30s, that was the period of life where I worried the most about the outcomes that I found depressing.
Whereas like, you know, like even like when you're like, oh, man, what if you're like you're old and you're like all alone when you're old?
Or like if you had anybody in your family growing up who's like was like living, you know, just always kind of like live by themselves.
And you're like, oh, man, what's that like? Is that so lonely?
Whereas like, you know, of course, I have a family that I love and I love spending time with my friends.
But at this point, I'm kind of like, you know what, if that's where life takes you and you end up, you know, living alone your whole life.
By the time you're like you're 75 or something like that could be weirdly cool to you.
I could see how there's like there could be like a soulfulness in every type of living.
But I was obsessively scared about like, oh, God, what if I live in a place I don't like?
What if I end up in a city that like bums me out?
What if I'm away from the people I know and I'm hanging out with people?
Now I can see like the the silver linings in all that stuff.
Did you guys, Seinfeld and Nick, did you guys ever have a period of like major career and or life anxiety?
What am I doing?
And if you have and if you still have it, no, I mean, this is no judgment zone.
I mean, yeah, we talk and we've talked maybe a bit about it.
I had a I mean, I started working at such a young age, you know, like I mean, I had a real job, you know, when I was, you know, I had this magazine.
Maybe I've talked about it on the show, but like in college, I started this magazine.
And so like it was like an editor and publisher of a magazine that's like was like a lot of work.
And that immediately went directly into Adult Swim.
You're a go getter and you're a high energy person.
I am a high energy person.
I definitely feel like I was fairly ambitious, but, you know, at 23, 24 is when I got this job at Adult Swim.
And so I had like a real, you know, like a move to Atlanta, you know, like at 24 to manage people.
And, you know, I mean, it felt like and I was in a kind of a different zone than all of my other friends.
And it happened sort of by accident.
The most sort of anxiety I felt was right before that.
And I don't think that we've really talked about it much, but there was a period when I moved in with my grandma, I moved to an old person.
I moved into assisted living home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and I was an investigative reporter.
But like I was definitely like not in a good space.
You know, I feel I had there was a moment where I had stopped.
That right there, that's the perfect example of something that is so obviously cool.
And I'm sure like you tell you tell the story now and even without details are already just like that's sick.
You know, it just sounds like it sounds like a movie or something.
But when you're 23 and you're hanging in the assisted living home in Fort Lauderdale, I could see that you're just like, wait, am I supposed to be in like New York or L.A.
right now?
Am I supposed to be doing something different?
But whereas now, if somebody if somebody if I tell this to anybody, this is one of the few things this in the Pentagon story.
You know, that's the other thing is I was working in the Pentagon.
We talked about when I was like 17, 18 years old. So then it rolled right in this way.
I always thought I had something like like I was on track.
And then as part of the deep state, you always had something to fall back on.
I had too much. I had too much intel for them to flounder too hard.
But I think that, yeah, there's something about that period that now I tell people and it's almost like across the board.
They're like, you got to make a TV show about that.
I mean, it is very funny and it feels very cool. But I moved to Florida because I don't have a job.
This magazine I started, I had this awful breakup with my partner.
We fold this magazine that I thought I would like be the rest of my life.
Like it was like vice. Like I thought I would do this thing forever.
And I have I move in a friend of mine who was a photographer for the magazine tells me that I can stay with her.
And she thinks she can get me a job writing for this weekly doing some investigative reporting.
And as soon as I moved to Florida with like nothing, I didn't totally put together that she had just gotten married.
And I knew she was with someone, but like literally they've gotten married and they did not want me there.
Specifically, she didn't want me there like over a week.
And I was like, I don't have anywhere to go. And so she kicked me out.
And the only other person I knew in Florida was my grandma who lived in an assisted living.
And the Alt Weekly was a Fort Lauderdale based newspaper.
It's a Broward, the Broward County New Times, which also there's a Miami New Times, which is sort of the equivalent.
Fort Lauderdale is near Miami.
Yeah, but there's a Broward. It's Broward County. They're closer about an hour away, 45 minutes away from each other.
So I move in with my grandma. I'm working this like very strange, like investigative reporting job that I don't I'm not really qualified for.
I don't know how long I can keep that like kind of charade going.
And I'm not making very much money. And I'm like, you know, I'll go out just and party really, really hard and then drive home to this assisted living home.
Who did you party with? You just made friends?
Well, yeah, there were like other young people, like, you know, the people at this Alt Weekly that would cover the bar section, you know, like the nightclub, like club
section.
Is this Atlanta?
Music right? No, this was in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Oh, Dave.
Living with my grandma and she basically, you know, I would eat these.
I mean, there's a lot of very funny kind of like details, like how I'd end up eating like four or five meals a day because I'd eat dinner with her at like four o'clock.
And then I would go out to eat a real dinner, like around eight o'clock.
And then I'd be up partying till like two thirty in the morning and eat like another like, you know, another meal.
I get like some diner at like two thirty.
Fifth meal.
And what kind of stuff were you investigating? You trying to like blow the top off like the cocaine?
Well, no, there was I found my biggest one that took the longest was I saw that there was this loophole in the gambling law because there was no gambling like that was
legal.
But they would basically get old people and a lot of people that was in this assisted living home.
They would go to these kind of like makeshift like strip mall casinos where they would be gambling for Walmart gift cards, basically.
So they they couldn't win. So they'd be on these slot machines that would never pay them out cash.
They'd pay them out in gift cards and they just love the experience of gambling.
So you had people that were like losing their life savings and they were never winning anything to win.
To Walmart gift cards.
Yeah. So I wrote about this. That was probably my biggest one that took a while was this sort of how a lot of these places had been popping up and were essentially, you
know, these these giant legal loopholes, you know, from whatever sort of like low key mafia.
At the time, were you a little depressed?
Oh, yeah. I mean, I yeah, I was. Yeah. I mean, I didn't know what I was going to do.
I mean, outside of this and I was like, this fun. Well, it got depressed as I'm like living in my grandma's computer room and my grandma's computer room in 2002 is never
used.
Right. Wait, Nick. Sorry. What college did you go to?
I went to Columbia. I graduated. Oh, right. I graduated in 2002.
Nick and I did not cross over at Columbia.
I didn't even know you went there. We like never talk about college.
And I was in and I was in England. Yeah. No one ever. Yeah.
It just doesn't come up. I was in English. We had some similar teachers. So as and I, you know, professor says and I will sometimes talk about it.
We were both English majors. And yeah, I was didn't know what I was. I really did think so.
Maybe that was the difference. At an early age, I sort of felt like I knew what I was going to do.
And I I it's not like I didn't have the same sort of fortitude or faith that Jake did.
But I definitely at this moment was like I thought I really had a plan and that plan fell apart.
And then my grandma kicked me out of the house because she was basically just told me that I was too difficult to live with.
Your grandma finally got into computers.
She was like, I got to get I got I finally figured out this email and I got to get into this room.
And so I go, Nick, you stay in the computer room. I never I never use that thing.
And then she's like, you know what, Nick, there's actually some really cool stuff happening on the Internet right now.
Get the I'm going to be up in the computer room a lot.
I go to bed really early. Everybody thinks it's strange.
I get up early in the morning, no matter how disappointed I was with the day before, it feels now.
I don't leave the house much.
I don't like being around people. Makes me nervous and weird.
I don't like going to shows either. It's better for me to stay home.
Some might think it means I hate people. But that's not quite right.
I do some stupid things. But my heart's in the right place.
And this I know. It's funny, I had never maybe I just thinking about it right now.
I never really put it together. So basically she kicks me out. My friend had kicked me out.
So we're not really talking much anymore. And I have nowhere to go.
And I eventually I'm like, I do know I can move back home with my parents.
Like I know that I could. I really don't want to. But that was never sort of not an option.
But I go to Boston where my brother's in college. And I'm like, I'll just stay here for a couple of weeks.
And my brother's sort of like dorm room, you know, sort of like flop house that he shared with like six dudes.
Because he was graduating. And when I was up there, they were all watching Adult Swim all the time.
And that's when I was like, oh, I'm going to write a story. I'm going to pitch this because no one knows what Adult Swim is.
And so that was what got me the job. I started was like, this is much bigger than anybody knows.
Because no one knew what it was. You wrote a piece about Adult Swim for the Broward County.
No, I'd left. I left Florida. I left Florida. They were like, my grandma kicked me out.
I couldn't really afford to live anywhere. So you just went to Adult Swim directly and were kind of like.
I moved. I went to Boston, stayed with my brother and then started pitching while I was up there.
I said, OK, can I have a, you know, I started pitching around and Esquire bought this story that, oh, there's a thing called Adult Swim.
No one knows about it yet. It's really popular. And why are young men watching Adult Swim?
And so I pitched that. And when I went to it and I went to Atlanta, so I maybe had a small window where I moved back home, maybe like a month.
And when I was interviewing in adults, when I was doing the interview, the story on Adult Swim, the guy that was the head of it, this guy, Mike Lazo, who we've talked about.
He hired me while I was interviewing him and said, do you want to come here and work for me?
He just like the cut of your jib. He liked the cut of my jib.
Honestly, there's there's not much more to it.
He is an interesting dude who never graduated high school yet was a Faulkner like he collect Faulkner first editions.
And I was a Faulkner studies major at Columbia. Whoa.
I talked to him about Faulkner and he was like, oh, I got somebody to talk to.
And he was really like misanthropic, never really met anybody.
And he was like, you want to come move to Atlanta and work? It's funny.
Wait, so that was like 2003. Yeah.
And I started because I had a 2003, 2004.
That story still feels so 20th century.
Everything about it. One is like the way you say he was a high school dropout.
His story is so good. I mean, that is what this Esquire story ultimately really would have been if I hadn't taken this job.
Is this dude doesn't graduate high school, gets a job working for Turner when it's like truly just like WWE and like early, you know, like the early cable, you know?
And he's a male guy and he's delivering mail to Ted Turner, like literally giving Ted Turner the mail from, you know, the bottom floor.
And when Ted Turner is like, oh, you seem like a smart guy. Do you want a little more responsibility?
And then ultimately is like, I just bought the Warner Brothers catalog.
I'm going to start Cartoon Network. Do you want to work for this new channel that's essentially just reruns of Warner Brothers TV shows?
And he then starts, he's like, actually, we can make some.
And he starts making Dexter's Laboratory and Powerpuff Girls, and then he becomes the head of Cartoon Network.
Well, you know, it's a true 20th century, like, I don't know, you know, and he becomes the head of the company.
I mean, from the mail room.
Does that still happen? Yeah. And then he meets some other guy and he's just like a journalist.
You seem like an interesting guy. Oh, you're a Faulkner fan? Come work for me.
Truly. No, never asked me where I went to college. Never asked me what, you know, what my previous experience was.
And so I really didn't have a lot of other options. And so I moved to Atlanta.
It's probably, yeah, that's not going to happen at some like white shoe law firm, but it's some little scrappy startup.
That'll still happen, I think.
I mean, I guess, but yeah, you need to be like so credentialed for stuff.
I mean, I think what's interesting about this is that in both cases, Mike Lazo getting hired by Ted Turner, then you getting hired by Ted Turner.
It was just people looking at somebody and being like, you seem like a smart guy. Come work for me.
Even with no experience, like, I don't think that's going to, that's not going to happen in tech.
Part of the reason is, is that nobody has any control over doing anything anymore.
It's, you know, at least in the business that I'm in, there's no one who's kind of goes rogue or renegade.
I mean, the way I was hired, I remember very vividly. I went out for my last interview.
I spent four days kind of embedded at Adult Swim.
And this dude says to me on the last day, I'm in, it's one of my final interviews with him.
When he said he goes, so what are you doing after this?
And I was like, I'm going to write this article and then hopefully it's successful and I get to write another.
And then I can like basically not live with my parents.
And he was like, no, I mean, like, you want to come work here in real time?
And I was like, I don't think so. I can't imagine moving to Atlanta.
And so I fly back home and he calls me and he's like, I talked to HR and there's a position for you.
You know, really just, yeah, I don't see that kind of thing, at least in my business.
I don't even see someone that could hire somebody anymore, you know, without talking to other people.
Yeah, I love those like old school stories where it is just somebody's like, yeah.
And then I was pretty broke. So I got this job, you know, working at this lighting warehouse.
And, you know, then one of the guys we supplied to, we just struck up a conversation one day and blah, blah, blah.
And it's like, that's how I became the head curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
You know, like there's like old school.
Richard Montanya's story.
I think also now it's like, yeah, maybe just it's classic.
It's like the destruction of the middle class or whatever. It's like the middle of jobs kind of dropped out.
So either you're like this, like, super type A, like, gunning for, like, the best positions in, like, the corporate world.
Like, I want to work as a product manager at Facebook kind of thing.
Or you're working like minimum wage and these kind of funny middle things where there's like small businesses where somebody is like, yeah, I was working for this guy.
And I kind of just, you know, and that's how I kind of started to understand, like, the dry cleaning business.
And then, you know, I saved up to buy my first one. And then that made me just, I don't know. I'm sad. I miss it.
Sleeping on a planter at the Port Authority, waiting for my bus to come.
Seven scotch and sodas at the office party. Now I don't remember where I'm from.
I think I had a black wallet in my back pocket with a bus ticket and a picture of my baby inside.
And if I make it home alive, I'm gonna get my issues together. 'Cause I can't live like this forever.
I've come too far and I don't want to fail. I got a new computer and a bright future in sales. Yeah, yeah.
Bright future in sales. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
What about you, Seinfeld? What's the most random depressing moment of your adult life?
No, but specifically adult life. We're not trying to get into childhood trauma or something.
I'm just saying that kind of, I'm a young adult, but I'm an adult now. Aimless. What am I doing?
Well, you guys know I was a college athlete, right?
Like I was very like, I was playing for the Western Mustangs, Canadian, like one of the top schools.
And I was like a real... Wait, wait, wait. What sport? Hold on. Is this a Penelope Swift thing?
What? Is this a Penelope Swift thing? What sport? Football. This is a bit. Canadian college football.
What position? Hold on, hold on. I gotta tell you.
For me, this is 70% likely to be alive, but there's a 30% maybe.
If he had said basketball, I mean, he's taller. Like football, I mean, you're tall.
So I might be bought out. Or water polo.
Or water polo. Hold on. I was like 250.
Wait, what school has the Western Mustangs?
That was the Western Ontario, University of Western Ontario.
Okay, we're in lie territory.
Why? What are you talking about?
This is a bit. Seinfeld, be real for once, man.
So, you know. Calling him Seinfeld.
Of course, there's a lot of scouting, a lot of CFL scouts are out there. They're watching me.
And then, you know, there was a crucial game and I got this really severe knee injury during a pivotal play.
I feel like this is Friday Night Lights.
Okay, I don't want to hear another word.
♪
♪
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Okay, Seinfeld likes to protect his...
Seinfeld likes to protect his identity.
No, I mean, I don't know. I don't have anything as, um...
Didn't you work for Vice for a while?
I did. I worked for Vice Canada for 30 days.
It was, uh...
It was not... I quit after 30 days.
It was not a great experience for me.
I used to refer to it as the hipster slave ship.
Or people used to say it was the 20-20-20 plan,
which was 20-year-olds working 20 hours a day
for $20,000 a year,
was the thing that people used to say.
Listen, Jack, I'm calling it the 20-20-20 plan.
[laughing]
It's, uh...
I'm gonna...
We got a lot of 20-year-olds in this country.
And they want to work.
And they'll work hard.
So if we could get enough 20-year-olds
working 20 hours a day,
and we give them a good wage, $20,000,
that's my plan for the American economy.
[laughing]
Yeah. Is that your Joe Biden?
Vaguely. At this point, it's just...
It got so off the rails that it was just kind of like
an old... any old politician, but yeah.
It's inspired by Joe Biden.
It's a young Joe Biden.
I think... No, I think that there was a time
where I was kind of like, in my early 20s,
between jobs and relationships,
where I was kind of like languishing.
And I was a little bit like,
"I don't know what I'm gonna do."
But it wasn't like... It didn't last very long.
I feel like I've also been fairly lucky career-wise.
So I don't really have any, like,
super dramatic narrative arc there.
I've been lucky, you know?
Seinfeld wants to protect his privacy.
- No, I'm not. - That's great.
Even if we were off mic, this is what I would say to you.
Yeah, no, fair enough.
I feel like I've been lucky to be...
You know, I've worked in media for my whole career,
and I've been very lucky to sort of be a little bit,
like, one step ahead of what the next thing was gonna be.
How old were you at Seinfeld?
I was born in '82. What does that make me?
- I'm 42. - 42.
- There you go. - So what were you doing when you were, like, 30?
30. 30 was the year that Seinfeld 2000,
that I started it.
And so I was working in television in Canada.
- Toronto? - Toronto.
Yeah, I was working at a TV station.
I was working at the Canadian equivalent of MTV.
- Oh, wow. - Yeah, I was producing some--
I was in broadcasting. I was producing shows.
It was fun. Like, it was a job that people wanted to have.
I-- you know, I was doing a lot of interviews.
I was doing live television, like, yeah.
- You were a presenter? - A presenter? I was--
What do you mean? Like, you were on live TV?
- No, I was producing live TV. - Oh, producing.
Like, I'd come up with, you know,
what would go on the television
for, like, this national broadcasting station,
and, uh, and, yeah, I-- you know, I'd write bits,
and I'd shoot little-- we'd work with, like,
BJs, they were called. Like, MTV had BJs.
We had them, too, and we'd book guests,
and, you know, I'd look after edits, and--
- I gotcha. - Yeah.
Again, nothing-- nothing--
just fun, just a fun job.
♪ Cross the street from your storefront cemetery ♪
♪ Hear me hailing from inside ♪
♪ And realize I-- ♪
♪ I am the conscience clear ♪
♪ You paid no ecstasy ♪
♪ You are a weak idea ♪
♪ Walk over, save the state ♪
♪ You're a lucky guy ♪
♪ My homeboy is down ♪
♪ Save him now ♪
♪ Take a look to see who I'm on there ♪
♪ And I'll-- I'll go down ♪
♪ The mouth is open wide ♪
♪ The lover is inside ♪
♪ And all the turmoil's done ♪
♪ Collided with the sign ♪
♪ You're staring at the sun ♪
♪ You're standing in the sea ♪
♪ Your body's all I need ♪
Guys, you know, TC has really graduated.
Now it's four guys in their 40s.
- True. - How crazy.
- Now that Ezra's 40. - Oh, my God.
Yeah, even the baby of the bunch.
Four guys in their 40s just kind of reminiscing.
Talking about their 30s.
Walking down memory lane.
Older than dirt.
Older than dirt, yeah.
Seinfeld got me that great older than dirt shirt.
I wear it.
I've been wearing it out in the world.
Through this whole discussion,
I keep coming back to this feeling,
which is, I guess I've had this about a lot of things,
where maybe when I've been doing these interviews,
or, you know, I've done a few where you walk through,
like, your whole career,
and the, you know, "Vampire Weekend" story starts,
and college, so naturally,
it takes me back to that time,
and the positives and the negatives,
and the excitement, but also the anxiety
about the future that I felt at that time.
And sometimes people ask, like,
"Yeah, did you have a backup plan?"
You know, as discussed many times on the show,
I was a teacher, public school, eighth grade in Brooklyn.
And it's funny, at the time,
I probably was a little bit scared
of being trapped in that job,
because I felt like,
I don't know if this is, like, my passion,
like, it's okay, I'm making it through,
but I always have this feeling
where I'm kind of like, "You know what?
"At this point in my life, I do feel
"like I have enough kind of understanding
"that I could go back,
"I could go back and do all these things
"that made me scared or nervous back then."
Like, you know, like, if somebody told me, like,
"All right, you're gonna have to go back
"to be, teach eighth grade in Brooklyn."
I'd be like, "All right, I got it."
You know, but like, I wouldn't have my kind of understanding
if I didn't have my life, you know what I mean?
Life takes you to a place where hopefully you realize
that actually, it's all okay, you just gotta keep on trying.
You know, you learn these, like, basic things.
But then I wonder if I'd always stayed a teacher,
and I'd had some, like, feeling of,
like, I'd never really given music a proper shot,
would I be, like, embittered or something?
Whereas now that I gave music a proper shot,
and I did it, and I've been doing it,
I'm kinda like, "It's cool, but that's, you know,
"but, you know, that's not what life's all about.
"Life's about chilling."
Whatever you do.
I think that's from a pretty rarefied position.
I think you'd be a different person.
I don't know how the kid--
I would be embittered.
How is a kid that couldn't wake up at 10 a.m.
to get to a class going every day at 7 a.m.
to get to public school to teach?
I mean, that seems, like, very inconsistent
with the "My Passion is Chilling" brand.
Yeah, but you get the summer off.
(laughing)
It's actually--
Even thinking about you doing that for a year feels great.
I don't have that sort of zen attitude, Ezra.
Like, the thought of going back to, like, art handling,
if, like, my career went south,
and I was making no money from selling paintings,
and I had to, like, go back to art handling,
like, that would be--
Like, I would be a grownup about it,
and chin up and be a man about it,
but, like, that would be really hard and devastating.
Like, I'm very keenly aware of, like,
I gotta keep things truckin'.
Did any of you guys watch the hit Vim Vendors film
from last year called "Perfect Days"?
Oh, yeah, I love that one.
It was nominated for an Oscar.
He's cleaning the toilets.
Yeah, it's about a single, it's a beautiful film.
It's very slow and artsy.
It was Amanda's, I haven't seen it.
It was Amanda's favorite movie from last year,
I think, for the reasons you're about to say.
Bro, you haven't seen your wife's favorite film of 2023?
Do better.
(laughing)
I have no response.
I have no response to that.
No, for real, bro, be a better husband.
Please, go on.
Beautiful, artsy movie.
You need to see your wife's favorite film of 2023, always.
I mean, that's why I watched it.
Oh, was it your wife's favorite film of 2023?
No, it's 'cause it was Nick's wife's favorite.
(laughing)
I'm always checking Amanda.
Oh, man.
Seinfeld's in a separate text thread with Amanda.
(laughing)
In our competing text thread.
Nick still hasn't watched it.
I got you.
That's terrible, I got you.
No, but Nick, you actually would like it,
and I think you'd like it too, Jake, but it's,
and look, there's a lot of great memes
about how the exact same thing
that's unappealing in America
through a certain type of international hipster's eyes
can seem very appealing in Japan.
I know, I'm very skeptical of this.
There's a classic meme where it's a guy looking
at that famous intersection in Pennsylvania
that has a McDonald's sign.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And just like, ew, and then shows the neon lights
full of advertisements in Japan.
He's like, whoa!
Like, amazing!
Just like Japanese junk-- Oh, Fujifilm?
Sony? Junk brands.
Yeah, exactly.
Just like, ew, American capitalism.
And then it's like, Japanese capitalism, ah!
Yeah.
But anyway, the movie is, and of course, it's a movie,
so it's well-made, and it's paced, it has an artsy pace,
and it's about a guy who cleans toilets in Japan.
Wait, sorry, is it a doc or a feature film?
It's a feature film.
Oh, it's acting.
Okay, so I trust it even less.
I mean, fiction can reveal reality more than docs sometimes,
but here's the thing.
I think what he's saying is it's not even just
with the film, just to be clear, it's not my understanding,
having not seen my wife's favorite movie,
is that it's not just about what the film's about.
It's the actual presentation is particularly measured
and beautiful.
It's aesthetically pleasing, but also,
because it's slow, you can tell he's really trying
to give you the texture and the pace of this guy's life.
A guy who gets up early, gets in his van,
he plays cassette tapes of music that he loves,
cleans toilets all day.
You see he has like one day off a week,
and he goes to a bookstore and gets a new book
that he can read for 20 minutes a night
before he passes out, and he goes and has a little dinner,
and then it's back to work.
And the movie also, there's these little cracks
where you kind of start to see like,
oh, interesting, is this guy running
from some painful past or something?
Oh, side note, Ezra, sorry to interrupt,
but it's also Faulkner who he's reading in the film,
if I'm not mistaken.
Isn't that right?
Yeah, right, at some point, he's reading Faulkner.
You can tell he's like, the character is like
into American stuff, he's reading like,
American books in translation, and he's playing,
it's called "Perfect Days" because he's always playing
tapes in the car, including like,
Lou Reed, "Perfect Day."
And so, you know, maybe at the end,
it's an interesting movie 'cause you're questioning,
is this guy satisfied?
There's just these handful of moments where you see like,
oh, maybe there's some difficulties in his family.
Maybe he's not completely settled
with some of the relationships he had in his life.
But there's something about a movie like that,
and I think there's a million examples of it,
where you're watching somebody have a very simple life,
working a job that I guess you could call,
I mean, cleaning toilets, could be a little bit gross.
Certainly, it's not prestigious, right?
It's not a high status job where people are, you know,
saying, wow, look at that, look at what you do, or like,
and yet, sometimes you watch a movie like that,
and maybe that is a good thing about movies,
is providing the aesthetic lens to appreciate everything,
not just like the shiny jobs or something.
And I do feel like, whether we're talking about a movie
or just reminiscing and talking about like, you know,
like Nick, your story, living in grandma's computer room
in Fort Lauderdale, unclear where your life is heading,
trying your hand at investigative journalism,
not sure where that's going.
Looking back, that sounds like a really like,
could be like a very beautiful time in your life,
or something that, you know, if somebody said,
you wanna throw on a VR headset right now,
and you wanna port into that experience
for like a couple weeks, I'd be like, yeah,
that's kind of like vibey and interesting,
I wanna see what that's like.
But you know, I understand that,
but at the time, these things,
when you have a lot of anxiety about the future,
it's harder to appreciate how vibey or some jobs could be,
and some experiences could be.
- I mean, in the movie, does he have like a family
or anything or like a relationship?
- No, that's the other thing,
it's a very, he has a very lonesome existence,
or very solitary existence.
- Yeah, I mean, I think you can romanticize that,
and then I think you do part two of "Perfect Days"
and it's 20 years later, and he's still single,
and he's submitted all his short stories
to the cool journals in Japan that don't publish his work,
and he's bitter, and he's depressed.
I think it'd be tough to be without a partnership
or a family or a job that means anything to you,
and maintain this like Zen Buddhist outlook.
- Although, but it's funny--
- You can go for a while,
if you're working towards something.
- It is the epitome of Zen, you know?
- Yeah.
- And maybe that's the irony, it's like,
and maybe also it's partially about
when you end up in a situation like that,
you can either, if there's a part of your brain saying,
"No, this is not where you're supposed to be,"
you're gonna suffer, and if there's a part of you
that says, "You know what?
"This is cool."
I mean, obviously, even what little I understand about Zen
is developed by monks who chopped wood and carried water,
lived the most simplest life, no wives or girlfriends,
no movies, no constant stimulation
from new experiences or novelty.
- No iPad.
- No iPad.
What if early Zen monks have iPad?
- Yeah, I mean, the texture of life hundreds of years ago
is completely different from how it is now, so.
I think it'd be easier to pull that off back then.
- The last thing I'll say is,
you know how when you're in another country
and you do some regular degular stuff,
like go to the gas station, go to the supermarket,
it's pretty interesting?
- Dude, yeah.
No, when I moved to LA, man, I was so psyched to be here.
Like, even sitting in traffic, I was like,
"Oh yeah, this rules."
- Well, yeah, because--
- And it wears off eventually.
- Right.
I guess that's what you gotta keep alive.
- No, yeah, I mean, look, as a visual artist,
I strive to do that every day.
You wanna be alert to all of the possibilities
and chance poetry that's unfolding before you,
but sometimes it's hard.
- What about our perfect day,
which is Jake driving from the Glendale,
like shopping, it opens with him shopping
in maybe the Glendale Home Depot,
and then getting in his car and driving,
and it's mainly to his job across town on the West Side,
to a gallery, and it's just mainly him and his car in LA.
Just having a great day, just feeling.
- Listening to Guided by Voices.
- Oh, absolutely.
1992's "Propeller," let's go.
I got 40 minutes to get down to Culver City.
(laughing)
- GPV, GPV.
(upbeat rock music)
♪ You're spinning down the final stages ♪
♪ Staring at the stingers of all ages ♪
♪ You're finding God in the dictionary ♪
♪ Taking a five minute pass in the cemetery ♪
♪ Oh yeah, I'm going to drive my car ♪
♪ Oh yeah, I'm going to go through some more ♪
- But Jake, do you ever think, do you ever like,
obviously you have a passion in life,
you have something you're really good at,
you've doggedly pursued it,
and you've taken it to new heights,
you know, you're always taking it to new heights,
but are there ever times where you, in a positive way,
think about like some other kind of life
or job or something?
- No, I'm very thankful that I can do what I do.
- Okay, Jake maintains his privacy.
Wait, we gotta, keeps it tight.
- No, there's no other job,
I don't know what else I would possibly do.
- I'm always just thinking about like, you know what?
- That would afford me the level of satisfaction
and sort of freedom and all that, you know, I just--
- I sometimes, there's been times in my life where,
like, there's been plenty of times in my life
where I wondered if I would ultimately be calmer, happier,
and maybe even closer to understanding the nature of reality
if I worked at like a little sandwich shop.
And to be fair, I picture it being kind of like
a cute little sandwich shop, I'm not picturing like--
- Not Quiznos.
You're not a sandwich artist at Subway.
- Which is your, isn't that your other real job?
- Yeah, for a week I worked at Quiznos,
but even that was kind of cool,
like when I look back on that,
it was Montclair, New Jersey, 2000s.
I guess I'm saying like, if you were just like,
you're gonna work at like this really
kind of depressing Subway, like this like regional airport
where the vibes are just terrible,
yeah, that's not what I'm picturing.
I guess I'm still picturing something kind of like cute,
maybe even like Japanese, like where you have like
the guy who runs a little place all by himself
or the woman and they're making the coffee by hand
and they have the, it's--
- I will say, I feel like you are articulating
sort of a shared millennial escapist fantasy
that a lot of people who work in the corporate world
often revert to, which is either that
we're living off the land or in some sort of commune
or some sort of agricultural fantasy.
I feel like there are like three archetypes of like,
what is the simple, organic kind of life
that I could be living as an alternative?
I feel like you've just spoken about one of them,
even coming from an exciting, a career that you may,
normally people may not want to escape from.
- Yeah, right, I've never had like a brutal corporate job
and no, I don't wanna escape from the dubs.
You know what, and I guess also though,
it's like, it's about, and this is where all these
like fantasies and imagining alternate lives get weird,
is like, yeah, of course, life is,
it would be very challenging to live a life totally alone.
If you had, you had no friends, no family, no partner,
none of that stuff, I don't really know
what that would be like.
If I've had moments in my life where I almost felt like
I got a glimpse of it, yeah, it was scary to me.
But if you told me I'd more or less have the same people
in my life and I'd come home to the same people
and on the weekends I'd see the same friends and stuff,
you said, but--
- No, you're making sandwiches.
- You're making sandwiches,
I really wouldn't be freaked out about that.
You know what I mean?
You guys don't agree?
- Oh, I mean, totally.
If you told me that I could just be a barista
at some kind of small artisanal coffee shop
and live more or less the same way that I live, absolutely.
- I think you're both coming at it from the perspective
of accomplishment because you've--
- Yeah, I don't buy this.
I just don't buy this worldview at all.
- No, I think it's true now that you've done great things,
but I think that if you had not achieved those things,
you wouldn't feel the same way.
- Right, but I guess there's two ways of looking at it.
One is, and of course, I've thought about
all this stuff before, you can say when someone's had
some success or made it to some extent in the industry
they wanna make it in, especially something like showbiz,
which is famously a lot of people tie their dreams up
in showbiz, so if you ever get to do it at any level
that you can call successfully, understandably,
you gotta kick the tires on that because it's rare.
The one way to look at it is, you know,
it's easy for you to say when you've had success
because you got that thing that everybody wanted.
You can have that feather in the cap
for the rest of your life and you go work
at the sandwich shop and it's gonna hit different.
Of course, I understand that perspective.
The other way to look at it is if you've had some success
and you realize, like, right, that's not what true success is
true success is knowing how to enjoy every day
whether you have good news that day or bad news that day
and how to live in the moment and all the cliches and stuff,
then you could say I'm thankful to success
for what it's provided me, but most of all,
I'm thankful that it makes me less scared
of going back to jobs I used to have.
You know what I mean?
It's a subtle difference.
- And maybe everybody just needs
to figure it out for themselves.
- Like, maybe that is the best part of success
is that if you're lucky, it makes you realize
that the success itself is not quite as important
as you'd imagined.
- And by the way, I'm not comparing,
I'm not talking about if you have no health insurance
and terrible health problems and you're stressing
about money and healthcare every day.
That's a very unique category.
What I'm talking about is more like being
like an embittered, you know, 35-year-old 8th grade teacher
which is a really actually meaningful job
and the pay's decent and you get the summers off
as discussed, you know what I mean?
- You get like six weeks off.
(laughing)
- You know, I think this, like, I read this thing
and 'cause TC's getting, it's entering its middle age.
I did, and I've never been able to read,
to find this article, but some Apple news thing
surfaced to me a few years ago saying
I kind of haven't been able to forget yet,
I cannot find it, which was some kind of,
it starts, it seems like a click-baity thing
and it was like how to avoid a midlife crisis.
So, you know, some click on it.
And the heart of it was that for your like first part
of your life, you know, the first half,
it's all about accumulation.
It's about achievement and trying to,
it's about collecting things, whether it's knowledge,
friends, accomplishments, whatever,
it's about growth, right?
And that then the second half of your life
is about shedding and you have to like get rid
of all this stuff, like you found what it is
in all of that sort of accumulation
and not giving the things that make you happy,
the things that you're comfortable with
and you have to then start spending
the sort of second part of your life,
shedding those to get back down to like now
that you know what makes you happy, right?
And the people that have a midlife crisis
are often the people that don't do that.
And they're the people that spend that second half
still trying to like collect things,
still trying to achieve things,
still trying to like, you know what I mean?
Like more, like keep that similar kind of ambition
and that is not, you haven't learned the goal
and that's where you see sort of people
who are like unhappy.
And that is sort of whether you call it a sandwich shop,
a bar, I think that's sort of what we're,
that's the version of what we're saying
is like there's a certain amount of like, oh, (beep)
there's like whatever accomplishments you have
at some point you realize, all right,
it's like now time to like sort of strip back down.
That's what I'm hearing in it.
And I do think that that's right.
And I understand sort of youthful ambition, right?
And there's a point where you go, all right,
well now either I've done it or not done it,
but whatever I have, I have to now go,
all right, I got X amount of time left
and happiness is gonna come from, you know,
understanding what that brought me
and what do I wanna keep, you know?
- Yeah, no, it's about appreciating simplicity.
And I guess that's something
that everybody eventually needs to do,
whatever, whether you're in a job you like,
a job you don't like, appreciating simplicity.
Is that needs to enter your life at a certain point.
Maybe you don't need it when you're in your 20s
or even your 30s, but yeah, I agree.
- And by the way, even what that article to me was saying
is like, it's actually like,
you shouldn't even really have that at that period,
you know, in those your 20s, 30s,
maybe part of your 40, whatever it is,
like when you decide you've sort of reached that goal
is like, you're actually supposed to,
that is a time of like, I'm just gonna collect,
you know, it's like, whatever it is, just things,
you know, ideas, friends, you just grow, grow, grow, right?
Like that's where you're figuring it out.
But it's untenable to continue that way.
And it doesn't bring you that.
It brings you to the point where then you go,
well, I've had this variety,
I understand what's working for me.
- And I think also, you know,
a huge part of why I think about these things,
whether I'm right or wrong or, you know,
but also having had some success,
but even more importantly,
having been around very successful people,
including people that are objectively
more successful than me,
sometimes a lot more successful than me,
you know, just like life working in showbiz.
- Jude Law.
- The Jude Laws of the world.
No, not Jude Law, but like all sorts of people, you know?
I mean.
(laughing)
- That's actually a really funny question.
Is Jude Law objectively more successful than Ezra?
I would say no.
- Oh, definitely.
- No, I would say no.
He's not more, he's more famous than you,
but within his field,
he's a well-known respected actor.
Within your field, well-known respected musician, songwriter.
(laughing)
- I mean.
- It's a really funny,
it's a really funny like.
- I'm giving it to Jude.
I'm giving it to Jude.
- Of course you are, we're on the show, I mean, yeah.
- Yeah, but.
(laughing)
- Wait, out of the show, he's not giving it to Jude?
I don't think.
I mean, give it to Jude.
I don't care, give it to Jude.
I just thought of Jude 'cause,
I think we joked about this on the show
once we went to see Jack White and Jude Law.
Jude Law did a voice on Neo Yokio.
- That's correct, yeah.
- And then he was backstage and I met Jude Law
and then I see in my memory, he was very tall.
- Is he tall?
I actually can't remember.
- Whatever, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.
It just, that just popped.
- We should have him on the show once sometime.
- That popped in.
- He's on the Vampire album.
- There's, oh yeah, and we even did a collab.
He's on a Japanese bonus track for Father of the Bride.
I love that.
- What?
Okay, well, there you go.
- Ezra's new attitude is every guest, he goes,
"Objectively, who's more successful, me or you?"
- Actually, that reminds me of something
that always pops into my mind and cracks me up
is that there was a student in my class named Frank
and at some point, you know, like some of the,
it could get really out of control, eighth grade classroom
and at some point he was like out of his desk
with this piece of paper running over to people
and I was like, "What are you doing?
"Like sit down."
And then I grabbed it and basically he had made a poll
that was, it was phrased, "Who looks better,
"Frank or this other kid?"
And he was just going over to every kid in the class.
I felt kind of bad too 'cause these were obviously two kids
who probably neither one of was,
like felt like they were that good looking.
So it seemed like it's probably one of those things
where they're fired up like,
"No, there's no way I'm as ugly as you.
"Who looks better, me or this?"
And just like--
- It's like coming from a positive place.
- Yeah, it was kind of coming from a negative place
but I still think about that just like, "Who looks better?"
♪ Let's get together and talk about the modern age ♪
♪ All of our friends were gathered there ♪
♪ With their pets just talking ♪
♪ About how we're all so upset ♪
♪ About the disappearing ground ♪
♪ As we watch it melt ♪
♪ It's all the good that won't come out of us ♪
♪ And how eventually our hands will just turn to dust ♪
♪ If we keep shaking them ♪
♪ Standing here on this frozen lake ♪
- Just to put a pin in that, who was uglier?
- Um, I can't remember who the other kid was.
I can almost picture him.
You know, they were--
- It's not a fair question for me to ask.
- But I just remember being like,
"Bro, you gotta win the poll, lose the poll.
"You already played yourself."
(laughing)
You know?
It's like, "Come on, come on, man."
Anyway, I hope you're doing okay, Frank.
Also, I remember at that school in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn,
the kids would mercilessly tease him for being named Frank.
They just thought Frank was the craziest name ever.
- It's old school.
- It was so old school that it was--
- It's a classic.
- It is a classic, but now that I think about it,
I don't know any young people named Frank.
- No, it's a hard one,
'cause Francis is probably not that much better.
- Anyway, what I was saying before was just,
I think I've just seen,
as somebody who has had ambition at many times in my life
and who entered a field where you need ambition
to kinda keep going, or certainly some form of ambition
was my fuel in the crazy early days of 2000s indie,
that when I started to encounter very successful people
or people who I'd admired or looked up to,
it was just interesting to me to realize
how many, and this is maybe a cliched observation,
but just how many successful people
are fundamentally dissatisfied.
And also, maybe I saw signs of it in myself
and said, "Yeah, I'm kinda dissatisfied too."
And maybe there's times where I thought,
"Well, maybe dissatisfaction is the artist's lot in life."
'Cause what does an artist do?
An artist creates and says,
"No, that's not right, this is right.
"No, I'm not gonna use that guitar tone,
"I'm gonna use this one,
"because I'm not gonna settle for something
"that doesn't feel quite right to me."
That is part of making art that you believe in,
is having a strong sense of dissatisfaction.
If I hear a mix and it doesn't sound like how I imagined it,
I get a pit in my stomach, I get a really negative feeling.
So anyway, dissatisfaction, I think,
is often part of the artist's lot in life.
And I started to think,
"Well, yeah, maybe it's good to be dissatisfied."
What's the opposite of being dissatisfied?
Easily placated, how are you gonna make art
that you believe in if you just say,
"Yeah, that's good enough."
So I was kinda like, "Maybe it's good to be dissatisfied."
And then you'd see people
who are kind of leaning into dissatisfaction,
and you can see how that path leads to, obviously,
unhappiness, madness, just not a good thing,
and even can make the sweet smell of success kind of acrid.
And you see how, right, the,
like we've joked about on the show,
these people who make albums about like,
about like, "Fame isn't all it's cracked up to be, man."
And everybody's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever."
But clearly, people suffer from success.
DJ Khaled, I believe, titled an album,
"Suffering from Success," which I've always loved.
So anyway, I guess my point is,
seeing that has also made me, the older I get,
and I've seen people make different choices in life,
and of course, I know very satisfied, happy artists,
and happy, successful people,
but I also know people who just have a certain je ne sais quoi,
a type of satisfied mind,
who did not necessarily make it
in some sort of like, you know, shiny career.
And I just think the fact that I've seen both of those things
makes me think a lot about like,
right, maybe like the,
and especially 'cause my passion in life is chilling,
I think about like, if you really love chilling,
chilling has to, you have to know how to chill
in every situation, you know what I mean?
- I mean, I love it, I love that for you.
It's very enlightened.
I'm a workaholic.
Painters are workaholics.
- And why, why is that?
- It's something, it's something--
- Is it just the nature of how your business functions?
- Maybe, I mean, I just think things,
things, I mean, this is probably true of any art form,
things always take longer than you think they're gonna take.
What you originally have in mind
ends up changing along the way.
And it's really fun, it's very gratifying
to be in the studio and working.
And like, five hours can just like,
go by in a blink of an eye.
- Right, and you feel good when you're painting.
So even if somebody said to you,
"You crushed it this year,
"I think you should take two years off,
"don't paint at all, let the market get hungry,
"and yeah, just really relax for two years,"
that's not appealing to you.
- I don't know what I would do.
First of all, I would never think about the market,
but secondly, I just don't know what I would do
with my days.
And maybe that's like a problem,
maybe if I was sitting in the therapist's chair,
they'd be like, "Well, that's a problem."
- Have you seen the Harry Potter movies?
- No, I'm not gonna watch those.
I'm not gonna read those, no.
- Well, because if you watched all of them,
that's a day right there.
- That's a day.
(laughing)
- What about all the Star Wars TV shows on Disney+
so you can catch up on those?
- Watching TV during the day
is one of the most depressing things I can imagine.
- Oh, damn.
Do you ever go to the movies during the day?
- Rarely, and it's a treat.
- You walk out, it's still daylight,
it's still sunny. - I hate that, I hate that.
- I like that.
- Going to Mission Impossible 7 or whatever,
and it's a 12.30 screening, you walk at like three,
and you're just like, "Oh my God, blinding light."
- You really have a passion, and you're good at something,
and what you do, I'm sure you feel relaxed.
I mean, I'm sure you're stressed when you're under deadline,
but when you're just sitting there painting,
I'm sure you feel relaxed, you feel peaceful,
it's where you're supposed to be.
So it would be disingenuous for me to say,
"You know what, man?
That workaholism is (beep) up.
You should be, get okay with watching TV all day."
- I don't feel relaxed or peaceful, but I feel engaged.
- It doesn't, it feels so, it tracks so well
that Ezra's passion in life is chilling,
and chilling is Jake's nightmare.
It's perfect.
- I like chilling at the end of the day.
- And yet you're a chill dude.
- With loved ones.
- Yeah, I try to be a chill dude.
I think I am a chill dude.
- There's difference between a chill
at the end of a very long work,
it's almost not chilling then.
You're recovering.
It's recovery unwinding.
- But I love to unwind, I don't like to chill.
That's a great parsing of the terms, Nick.
I like to unwind, have a drink with the loved ones,
maybe watch a film program,
go to dinner, talk with people, whatever.
I don't like to go to bed early.
I like to go to bed late and then get up early,
and then feel tired.
That's my role.
♪ Something for the gradual moment ♪
♪ Of a lifetime, darling ♪
♪ Something big is gonna happen ♪
♪ Of a modern body ♪
♪ Something's gonna, something's gonna ♪
♪ Of a modern body ♪
♪ This is how I'll self-teach ♪
♪ Of a modern body ♪
♪ I'm gonna push through ♪
♪ Let this one show ♪
♪ Of the way ♪
- I think Jigweed you're hitting on is very real,
and it's purpose is important in life.
And I think having a sense of purpose,
moments in my life where I felt no sense of purpose
were difficult, for sure.
And having a vampire weekend,
and always, I guess in a sense I'm lucky
because I can always think about the next album.
Like as aimless as my time might get,
I always have the next album to at least think about.
Even it's an imaginary point on the horizon,
and that probably makes me feel a bit more
at home in the world.
Whereas if that didn't exist,
I might feel fully like out to sea.
But I guess the thing that I've had to learn,
whatever, I guess in my 30s, in my early 40s,
which has been two months, one month,
is also like, right, a sense of purpose is important.
So when you don't have a lot going on,
how can you imbue chilling with a sense of purpose?
And to me that's the trick.
It's not like, oh yeah, have no sense of purpose.
It's almost like finding the little things
that give life a sense of purpose.
Which for me, I realize it can sometimes be as simple
as being like, I'm gonna walk a lot today,
and move my body, and I'm gonna--
- Cook dinner, yeah.
- Cook dinner, and I'm gonna,
and maybe that's why something like working
at the sandwich shop is appealing,
because obviously I'm not sitting here being like,
you know what, do you guys ever fantasize
about working a very high risk, arduous,
mind-numbingly boring, dangerous job
involving physical labor?
Like obviously I'm not saying that,
although I do, you know, if that's your lot in life,
you gotta find the vibe in that.
But there is something about the simple,
gentle, repetitive stuff, like making a sandwich.
That's appealing, because that is just like,
that is just knowing how to vibe, and not, you know.
- But chilling can be a part of the process too.
Like I feel like as a creative person,
you need that kind of gestational absorption type of time
to get inspiration and to, you know,
like I don't, Jake, I don't know,
maybe it's different with your medium,
but don't you find that you kind of need to pause
to like reinvigorate yourself,
or you're just kind of like, you're able to just--
- No, I mean you have to go out and like see the world.
It's like, I just can't be in my studio every day.
I have to go out and like find new stuff and see stuff,
and you know.
- Pound the pavement in Dallas.
- Yeah, pound the pavement in Dallas
before I go to Austin for--
- That's like a form of chilling.
- Yeah, no, it's a very,
it's like an invigorated form of chilling.
- Well, and you know, the truth is,
I also want to be clear,
I'm not remotely criticizing your lifestyle.
In fact, if anything, I think there's been times,
because I've known you so long,
where I looked at what you do and I said,
"You know what, I wish I had that."
Because the nature of your relationship to painting
is just not my relationship to music.
- I remember you came to my studio years ago,
and you're like, "So you just like post up on a painting
"for like five hours?"
And I was like, "Yeah."
And you were just like, "Whoa."
You know, that was like crazy.
- But I thought it was cool,
because just for me,
the music is more like little bursts of inspiration.
I've just never been somebody who,
like for instance, you know,
I have a little, tiny little studio.
I've never been somebody
who wanted to have my own studio at home.
I like to have a little room,
have a piano in the house, a little laptop.
If the spirit moves me, mess around a bit,
I have guitars around.
But I never felt the need,
and partially because I've been lucky to work with,
you know, amazing producers in my life.
But I also just never,
and there's times where I said,
"Yeah, I should probably, I could probably get,
"I bet we could probably get albums done more if I,
"when I write a song, I sketch out the demo a bit more."
And yet, I just never felt the need to have that,
'cause that's just not how I work.
So when I see people who have a workspace,
and whose work and talent takes them to that space
for hours every day,
and they feel good and comfortable in that place,
there's a part, I really admire it, actually.
That's just not my lot in life.
So I've had to imbue my passion for chilling with meaning.
Because if you just said to me,
"Do you wish you had a space where you could go,
"have a sense of purpose every day and do your thing?"
I'd say, "Yes."
And then they say, "Well, you're a musician.
"Why don't you build a studio and make that your spot?"
And I'd be like,
"Because that's just not how my creativity has ever worked."
So yeah, I really--
- That's cool.
- So for me, in a way, having a cute little sandwich shop
would almost be my imitation of your life, Jake.
- Right, the daily practice of,
instead of the daily practice of painting,
it's the daily practice of sandwich artistry.
- Yeah, exactly.
Because you have this great thing
that you can dissolve into,
and you can be like, watch five hours vanish.
Whereas when I work on music, it's just not the same.
♪ You always go to the party ♪
♪ To cut the feathers off all the fur ♪
♪ On your knees ♪
♪ I will not obey you ♪
♪ I want your picture but not your words ♪
♪ You know they're haunted but they're no worse ♪
♪ On your own ♪
♪ You cannot control ♪
- Well, this episode was supposed to be about 2000s indie.
I guess it was, in a way.
It was about the lives of
a bunch of independent individuals
who lived through the 2000s.
- Four men in their 40s.
- Four men in their 40s,
reminiscing about jobs
and vibing and chilling.
On the next episode, we'll actually go deep on the music.
This, hopefully, is a nice prologue for getting into it.
And yeah, I think we can actually talk about 2000s music
and kind of what we were listening to
and how that impacted us.
'Cause I was starting to make a playlist
going into this episode,
and I realized that era, for me,
2000 until, you know, let's say 2006,
is very interesting because that really was,
in a way, my coming of age.
And it made me realize something.
And I imagine we'll all talk about them a bit
in our 2000s indie episode.
But I kind of remember when The Strokes came out,
I think I was a senior in high school.
'Cause their first album came out on 9/11,
and I was a senior in high school on 9/11.
And I can actually vividly remember the TV
that I would go chill at my friend Wes's house.
And I remember seeing the last night video on that TV
in his TV room.
And I also remember that was the same TV
that we went and watched on 9/11
when they let us out from school early.
And we watched World Trade Center 7 fall on that same TV.
So anyway, I'll always associate The Strokes
with World Trade Center 7.
- Tower 7, bro.
- Tower 7 is a sit.
But anyway, I remember at the time being like,
I'm just across the river in Jersey.
And I remember there was the football coach at my school
was like, oh, I remember some of those guys.
I used to like teach at Dwight.
A bunch of them went to that school in Uptown in New York.
So they didn't feel that much older,
and they didn't feel a million miles away either.
And so it's funny, like that was like,
you know, whereas in the 90s,
and thinking about the music I'd listened to,
these people seemed so much older.
Whereas, you know, by the time you're 17,
and you're like looking at a new band or something,
it just doesn't feel that far away.
So that was like really this interesting moment
of kind of like thinking about music.
I don't wanna say peers, because that still wasn't the case,
but you know what, like that's an interesting transition
when you start to imagine what they're doing.
Is that something you could do with your friends,
versus, you know, even just a few years earlier,
when I'm like 14 listening to Radiohead,
maybe we might've imitated it,
but that just seemed like another planet.
So yeah, the 2000s is really where like my brain
kind of started to come online,
and think of these bands as like, I don't know.
Yeah, just something, not peers,
but also not like giants living on another planet either.
- That's so funny, man.
That's the days between,
because that's when I tapped out.
- Tapped out in what, like you were just like done caring?
- Yeah, like I was really struggling to come up with music
from the 2000s that I liked, that I thought was any good.
I liked the Strokes, I liked the Shins,
but at that point I was, what was I, I guess 23 in 2000?
I was like, at that point starting to like go deep
on like Springsteen, Neil Young, like the old stuff.
And I was like, I would hear these new bands,
and I'd be like--
- You weren't into those Matador bands?
- In the 90s? - No, but that's 90s.
- Yeah, but no, but I feel like, I mean,
but I understand-- - Bell and Sebastian, yeah.
- Yeah, Bell and Sebastian, Silver--
- But they came out, they started in the 90s.
- No, no, I was--
- Right, like Jake, I bet, I imagine when like
the first Arcade Fire album came out,
and you probably knew some people were like,
oh, have you heard this new band?
I bet you didn't give a (beep)
- Absolutely not.
- Right.
- Even The Strokes, I was like, oh yeah,
I mean, Lou Reed, television, cool, been there, done that.
I was just like, okay, I see,
like not that this was like a cool position,
but that's just where I was, where I was like,
oh, I see, I see what's happening.
I know the references these bands are doing,
and they're not as good as the originals from 20 years ago.
- Okay, you wanna go straight to the source?
- I also do think that there's a defining,
like in a lot of the band, in the sound,
there's like a kind of, whether it's The Strokes
to whatever the DFA stuff is,
like it does feel like there's like a Franz Ferdinand,
a very DNC quality to it.
- Yeah, I don't like that.
- That Jake does not like.
- No, but here's the thing, here's the thing.
- Cross the board, exactly.
- Can I say this though?
I did not like Belle and Sebastian when they came out,
and I really like Belle and Sebastian now.
- Oh.
- At the time I was sort of like,
I don't know, just more interested in older stuff,
and I was like, you know what,
if this stuff's good, it'll rise to the surface,
and I'll come back to it.
I remember thinking that.
And like, The Strokes singles are awesome.
Do The Strokes make good records I wanna throw on?
No.
Are their singles awesome?
They're like U2 to me.
They're like, can't listen to a full record,
the singles are unimpeachable.
Belle and Sebastian, the records are amazing
all the way through, I love Belle and Sebastian now.
But like, I had this feeling of like,
I'll come back to it if it's good,
and if it's not good, I don't care.
I don't have, I can't deal with this.
That's, I don't know.
- Yeah, no, I feel you, and I used to like,
yeah, and I think that's part of growing up too,
is being able to say that.
Like, I don't have a strong opinion on this right now,
and maybe I'm just at an age in my life
where I need some context for it.
You know, it's like the same way that I feel about sports.
Like, I have my like, vague team affiliations.
Like, I always have a soft spot for the Knicks,
and like, you know, I like New York sports culture.
- Sure.
- You know, my dad and my grandparents are from the Bronx,
always kind of like the Yankees,
but then Bayles Cousins on the Mets,
so I'm like, oh, that's all right, I'll check out the Mets.
But broadly speaking, I kind of remember, Jake,
you explaining a lot of this to me
during the World Series that was the Astros
versus the Dodgers.
You were giving me a lot of context for the players,
and I just kind of realized like,
yeah, when I'm like, hanging with somebody,
and they can like, tell me players' backstory,
that's helpful, because I'm not gonna be the dude
all up on ESPN.com and listening to like,
three hours podcast every single day,
talking about just like, the off season,
and like, that's not where my attention's going.
But given enough time and context,
I can become really engaged in a team,
or a player, or a game.
And I think the same thing's true with music.
Like, maybe sometimes like, new artists come out,
and even ones that I can tell, I'm like,
obviously there's something special here.
But part of me is kind of like, waiting for the,
you like, who knows, like maybe,
I don't wanna say a band, 'cause it might sound like
I'm being dismissive if I name some like,
beloved artist who I don't listen to.
But like, I could totally imagine one day
there'll be like, a podcast that's like,
walking through some 2000s era beloved artist
that I never really had time for,
and something will click then.
Because at that point, I'll enjoy hearing the story
of how they got from album one to album 10.
And I'll go back and be like, right,
I wasn't paying attention at the time.
But again, I needed, sometimes you just need the context,
and you need the time.
Some people are meant to be day one fans of something,
and some people are meant to be like, you know,
listening to the Joker men,
that walks you through something
with all the benefit of historical context.
Yeah, with Bell Sebastian at the time,
I thought it was really twee,
and I was adjacent and sort of,
friends with a lot of people in a very incredibly twee
music scene in Portland, and some of the bands were great,
some of them were not so great.
And I just was like, I don't know, it was a turn off,
and then I've come back to their music
in the last two years, and I'm like,
this band is incredible.
Maybe we gotta just do a Bell and Sebastian episode,
'cause they'd love to.
Wait, and are you listening,
I imagine you're mostly listening to like,
the first three albums?
Yeah, yeah, Boy With The Arab Strap, and Tiger Milk.
Yeah, yeah, like only the, yeah, late 90s into whatever,
2001, 2002.
A lot of the music I researched,
that was like, oh, that's 2000s, right?
It was like, nope, that's '98.
First page of the Lion record?
Oh, '98, thought it was 2000.
Well, I did some research too,
and I did put a year 2000 Bell and Sebastian song
on my playlist, so maybe that's what we should end with.
Do you know this one, Jake?
This was like, on an EP, or maybe it was a single.
The A side was called Jonathan David,
and the B side was called
Take This Carriage Clock and Shove It.
Do you know this one?
I don't think I know that.
This is a great song.
Actually, you put this on a mix, Ezra.
Yeah.
I think Death Spot or somebody had you do a mix,
and you included this song.
Oh yeah, I made like a mix for a Madea fashion brand.
Thing I love about Bell and Sebastian though,
it's not trying to be retro,
it's not trying to be new,
it's not trying to be the future.
It's just somehow timeless.
♪ A quiet man takes a second to think what to do ♪
♪ He's out of his seat and he's starting to speak ♪
♪ And he hears his own voice ♪
♪ For years and years he's done ♪
And you know when the kind of non-album tracks
are this strong?
This wasn't even the A side of a non-album single.
This is the B side of a non-album single.
And also just like good storytelling.
Maybe we should check out some of the later albums.
I would love to.
I know the first four very well.
They had a pretty good single
that came out a couple years ago.
I mean, they're still churning out some things
that sound pretty good.
♪ I did the work and with the work went on ♪
♪ Too badly you left us to run ♪
- I'm seeing, speaking of Bounce of Bastion
and these are from Glasgow, right?
- Yeah.
- I'm seeing Teenage Fan Club tomorrow night.
- Oh, sick.
And they're opening for the Vampire Weekend in Glasgow.
- Teenage Fan Club is?
- Yeah.
- Wow, yeah, I love Teenage Fan Club.
I'm going to the Teragram tomorrow with my buddy Joel.
Guys in their 40s are going to see Teenage Fan Club.
- Oh, that's awesome.
Jake, come out for Glasgow
for the Teenage Fan Club Vampire Weekend show.
You could build some art stuff around that.
- What's the backstory there?
- We enjoyed putting the US tour together so much
and having like a real variety of openers
and everything from Mike Gordon to the English Bee
to Ra Ra Rai, just stuff we had a personal connection to
whether it's fans or actually personal.
And so in our much shorter European tour,
we're like, let's try to come up
with some different things.
So we have a mix of artists, some younger artists
and a sick, I don't know if you know this amazing UK,
80s band China Crisis is opening some shows in London.
I think we were just like talking with everybody
and booking agent about like,
oh, maybe in some places we should get like some legends
who might wanna open.
And somebody's like, what about Teenage Fan Club in Glasgow?
And I was like, you think they do it?
And like, let's ask, it's that kind of thing.
- So they're doing it, that's so amazing.
How long are they gonna play for?
- I have no idea.
I mean, this is like way.
- I know this means nothing to you, but you gotta say,
hey, Norman, Norman Blake, one of the main songwriters.
I hosted an inter-radio show.
One of my co-hosts, huge fan.
There's nothing cool for you to say, but I don't know.
- No, I mean, I'm a fan too, but maybe not as deep as you.
I mean, I'll, yeah, it'll--
- You know what, I have a Teenage Fan Club playlist
on my phone.
I'm just gonna send it to Matt
and it's gonna be the new TC playlist.
- Okay, sick.
All right.
- And you know what, after the next episode,
we should combine all our playlists
and make a Time Crisis 2000s, 2000 to 2005.
- Okay, we got a lot of work to do.
We gotta do a 2000 to 2005 music rundown.
We gotta do a Teenage Fan Club.
Maybe we'll do a Scottish episode
where we do half Teenage Fan Club, half Belle and Sebastian.
- Little orange juice too.
Let's go out on Teenage Fan Club Start Again
from the 1997 album Songs from Northern Britain.
- And December 8th, 2024 at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow, UK,
you can catch Teenage Fan Club with Vampire Weekend.
Tickets available now.
♪ I don't know if you can hear me ♪
♪ I'm feeling down and can't think clearly ♪
♪ And even though it's complicated ♪
♪ We've got time to start again ♪
♪ I don't know if you can hear me ♪
♪ Some things are changed but it's too late ♪
- Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
Ezra Koenig
(electronic music)
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