Episode 99: Conspiracy Theories with Mark Foster
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Transcript
Transcript
Time Crisis, back once again.
It's a dark summer, and this episode, we'll tackle it head on.
We'll be talking about everything from conspiracy theories, to David Berman, and so much more.
We'll also be counting down the top 5 songs on iTunes, and the top 5 Billboard hits of 1999.
This is a summary...
Time Crisis, with Ezra King.
B-B-B-B-Beasts.
One.
They passed me by, all of those great romances
The world I felt, wobbly, all my rightful chances
My picture clear, everything seemed so easy
And so I dealt to the blow, when the bus had to go
Now it's different, I want you to know
One of us is crying, one of us is lying
Leave it all on me baby
Time Crisis, back once again.
People are going wild for these fresh eps, man.
They were sick of the banked eps, now we're getting some fresh eps.
Seinfeld, how was the reaction to the last episode?
People are loving it.
People are into it?
Yeah, people can't get enough of the fresh eps.
You can taste the difference, you know.
There's just a difference between an ep that's just been delivered fresh from the produce section,
versus been sitting on a shelf.
It's fresher.
Yeah, it's not a canned ep.
It's definitely a fresher ep.
Well Jake, how have you been the last two weeks?
Pretty solid.
I like you got the Showtime Documentary Films Patagonia back on.
This is a truly random item of clothing.
This has come up on the show before.
It lives in my car or in my studio.
So you're not wearing it very often?
No.
Just to paint a picture for everybody, this is a Patagonia half zip.
It's not a heavy pile, it's a light pile.
And on the right upper sleeve, it says Showtime Documentary Films.
What happened was I somehow ended up in a situation where I was taking an Uber here
because my car broke down yesterday.
Oh, your car broke down?
And I normally keep clothes in my car.
Because I'm anticipating that the AC is going to be jacked in the Apple Music Studios,
and I'm not wrong.
It's pretty jacked.
It's frigid in here.
And in the Uber ride over here, it was frigid.
The guy had the temp at 60.
[laughs]
God.
It's not even that warm outside.
No, it's like upper 70s.
It's an LA evening.
Yeah.
Mid-70s.
So I was like, "Uh-oh, I don't have my normal wardrobe in my car."
I usually have a couple shirts and stuff just kind of hanging out in the passenger seat of the car.
No car.
This is this filthy, beat-up polar fleece.
Basically on the floor of my studio.
Grabbed it.
Yeah, it's got some dog hair on it.
Yeah, dog hair, paint.
It smells.
[laughs]
Like, really terrible.
I look like a dirtbag right now.
It's not your go-to.
No.
You don't look like that much of a dirtbag.
That's cool.
Real quick, lint roller on that, and actually you'd look kind of bourgeois.
I'd look like a member of Empire Weekend.
[laughs]
I mean, I have--
You know, like a thin polar fleece and some shorts.
I've been pretty into this one half zip lately.
Sorry, what's the--
Oh, okay, half zip is just zips halfway down.
It's more like a third of the way down.
That's a half zip.
I'm not going to split hairs here.
Well, yeah, I guess there's such a thing as a quarter zip,
but I just feel like it's either you're wearing a full zip or a half zip.
Is there a three-quarter zip?
That would be so awkward.
Picture if you had it all the way down, three-quarter zip.
Let's get a number crunch on that.
That's a good one.
Maybe with a pocket blocking it.
That's the reason.
Okay, you know what, Jake?
I stand corrected.
I think you're wearing a quarter zip.
I stand corrected.
But that's one of those little quirky things that makes me me.
You know, as discussed on the program, I call buffalo wings buffalo wangs,
and I call quarter zips half zips.
Although when you search half zip, you see stuff that's in the ballpark.
Look, here's the thing about zips.
The average consumer, they just want to know, does this go down all the way
or does this stop somewhere around my nipples?
You know, nobody's going to send a half zip home saying this is more like a third zip.
Yeah, this is exactly the same level as my nips.
The bottom of it is exactly the same level as your nips?
Yeah, so there's no such thing.
It should just be called a nip zip.
I'm putting a level on it as we speak.
Confirmed.
Three-quarter zip doesn't exist, but I'm seeing people calling a quarter zip a three-quarter zip.
Oh, because three-quarters are not zipped?
That's right, yeah.
They're going the opposite way.
I've always been fascinated by the half zip.
It kind of struck me as like--I still actually haven't seen the show,
but you know, a succession kind of look.
Like a certain type of rich dude wears half zips.
Wow, I should get more half zips, maybe.
You should get more half zips.
But actually, I don't like wearing them that much.
You know, there's this one--and also, this is not a fleece.
It's a sweater, which I think is a little bit different,
but there's this blue half zip that I got on a music video shoot, and I liked it so much
I've been wearing it on stage a bunch, and I actually got a second one.
Sweater or fleece?
A sweater.
On stage?
Yeah.
Full show?
Yeah, I realized I don't wear a t-shirt under it, and sometimes I'll wear shorts,
and I'm like, "You know what? I'm good, man."
We've played it.
And as discussed, we've played some very cold shows this year.
Chicago, notably.
Frigid.
I could have been wearing two half zips.
But a fleece half zip, it's interesting because outside of on stage,
I always want to be able to zip something all the way down.
I don't like taking things on and off over my head in public.
Right, you get the t-shirt tangled up in there.
Hair gets all static-y.
People are like, "Are you taking your shirt off right now? What's going on?"
And then also, just like, it's dangerous.
One way or another, you're going to be--even just for a millisecond--
you're going to be momentarily blinded when you take a half zip off.
Even if you do it in kind of like--you know, not like a little kid,
like full inside-out, over-the-head way.
You do it in a more grown-up, like gradual, like--
Yeah.
It's an awkward thing, and I don't like it.
I like to zip all the way down.
And I feel like you feel the same way.
That's why this is not your go-to.
I'm not in love with this shirt. It was a desperate move.
But it does look good. It's a good color.
But I'm glad I brought it because it's frigid in here.
Yeah.
Why do people keep everything so cold?
I don't know.
It's so hard to find, like, a middle ground.
I keep the house at 77.
That's very warm, especially in L.A.
Yeah, but it feels cool if it's 90 degrees out.
You go inside, it's 77. It feels great.
And then, you know, naturally, it'll drop to about 72, 73
over the course of the night.
Right.
Ceiling fan?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Go to sleep, and it's like 75 in the house with a ceiling fan.
You're golden.
♪ On me, baby ♪
♪ Goddamn, I am ♪
♪ I can't sing and hear me, know me ♪
♪ If you want to destroy my sweater ♪
♪ Hold this thread as I walk away ♪
- All right, well, what do we want to talk about today?
- Great question.
Epstein?
- I just did a Q and A for the Time Crisis Wiki.
- Oh, really?
- Yeah.
- The website?
- That's what it is, a website, right?
What's it called, TCU?
- Universe Wiki.
- Wait, is it the Wikipedia page or is it the?
- No, no, no.
- It is like another thing?
- I thought somebody made a Wiki for Time Crisis.
- Yeah, it's like--
- Or not a Wikipedia page, but a Time Crisis Wiki.
- It's the Time Crisis Universe.
- What's the difference between the Time Crisis Wiki
and the Wikipedia page?
- A Wiki is like a format for a kind of website.
So, you know, you could do for something, you know,
a Star Wars Wiki that's like the whole thing
is about Star Wars.
- Yeah.
- Has nothing to do with Wikipedia.
It's almost like you build your own Wikipedia
about whatever you want.
- Gotcha.
- So is that what it is?
- Yeah, yeah.
No, you nailed it.
It's the Time Crisis Universe Wiki through fandom.com.
- Yeah, I did a Q&A 'cause somebody who runs it
hit me up on Instagram and I thought, you know,
they're providing real service for the fan community.
Must take a lot of work, right?
- Was this over like DM, email?
- They DM me and then I had them, you know,
email one of my associates to pass on.
- What sort of questions did they have?
- One of them was how do you guys prepare?
And I kept it real.
We don't really prepare, but the producers prepare.
They give us information.
- Print out emails from--
- Yeah.
- Listeners and--
- It would be incorrect to say that there's no preparation
for this show.
Just Jake and I do very little of it.
And the truth is we have the Time Crisis text thread
to talk about topics.
- I feel like there's almost daily additions
to the Time Crisis either email thread or text thread.
- Yeah.
- Which is you and I, Nick and Seinfeld,
and then Matt and Colin.
- That's right.
- That's like six people.
- Yeah.
- Deep thread.
- And the truth is if we ever like, you know,
we ever got in trouble with Apple,
and they're just like, "Guys, this show's a mess.
"You're all over the place."
We want you coming in with, you know,
seven to 10 topics every single time,
and we want you to move quickly through them.
The listeners don't like these tangents.
We're gonna produce short little segments.
- Professional-like.
- Very professional.
Every week there's a plethora of Time Crisis-esque.
We can't even keep track.
There's so much Time Crisis stuff in the universe.
- Yeah.
- Like stuff sounds like it's made for Time Crisis.
Sometimes it's not particularly Time Crisis.
Like you brought up Jeffrey Epstein.
We got an email from somebody.
Who's that email from?
- I sent a text to the thread.
There was a Stereogum article about Mark Foster.
- Oh yeah.
- From Foster the People going in on some like,
kind of deep-end conspiracy theories.
Body double, Epstein's still alive.
He's in Saudi Arabia getting plastic surgery.
- A lot of people.
- Like some serious face-off kind of stuff.
And then we got an email.
- From Kyle, Kyle Santilli.
- What did he say?
- Well he said his two favorite things to listen to
is number one, Come Town.
- Right.
- Which is a podcast.
And then he also likes Time Crisis.
And you know, my understanding is Come Town.
And I've been aware of some of these guys via Twitter.
Always seem like funny, smart dudes.
And I know people who swear by the show.
I don't listen to that many podcasts period though.
One day I'll listen to it from front to back, I'm sure.
- I feel like on the road you'd have time, right?
- If I was driving, but that's the thing.
I think the best times to listen to podcasts
are when you're driving.
- Right.
- Here and there, if somebody really tells me
to listen to something, I might have it on the plane.
But I don't know, there's something about,
I'm used to being entertained all the time.
I'm like, okay, the plane.
- Oh, movie.
- I'm gonna be watching a movie.
I'm gonna have my iPad loaded up
with a very engaging TV series.
And then so the idea of--
- The idea of like a poorly recorded podcast.
- Just like staring at the seat in front of me.
Eh.
- I mean, no, but maybe I could get into it.
Like I think we've talked about this before, Jake.
You have the ultimate job for a podcast listener.
- Oh yeah, I'm big into pods.
I'm painting all day.
- 'Cause you're painting all day.
- Yeah.
- How often do you listen to music even?
- It's just a mood thing.
- Yeah.
- I'll throw in music.
I've been doing a lot of Silver Jews last week.
- Right.
- I'll do like an hour or two of music a day
and maybe three or four hours of pods.
- So you're listening to like--
- I'm all over the place.
I subscribe to like dozens and dozens of pods.
- You listen to 15 to 25 hours of pods a week.
- Oh, easy.
- And what's your absolute fav?
- I don't have one.
- All depends on your mood.
- I love Chapo.
I love Bill Simmons.
What else do I like?
Oh, I love Red Scare.
Nick turned me on to Red Scare.
- You listen to Joe Rogan?
- I do listen to Rogan.
I listen to Bernie on Rogan.
Good ep.
I subscribe to Rogan.
I'll check in.
I listen to maybe one out of every--
- Oh, I'd like to hear Bernie on Rogan.
- Maybe one out of every five or six episodes.
I mean, you've heard the talking points from--
- Yeah, yeah.
- Bernie.
- Yeah, maybe it's not that interesting.
- Okay.
- It's kind of, it's an interesting collision
of personalities.
- The dude who emailed, he,
and so from what I understand,
Comptown, the Epstein story, conspiracy, scandal,
it's like super up their alley.
You know, I'm sure that's like Christmas
for their listeners.
You know, it's like, that's the type of specific,
you know, weirdo story that they're into.
But this guy's like, "You guys should talk about it too."
It was like, you know, and I kind of appreciated that.
- I get that, you're into two different things
and you're like, "Why don't you guys talk about it too?"
But yeah, I mean, what's the time crisis angle here?
I think you had a good one, Jake.
It's that you said Mark Foster from Foster the People,
who I like, you know, I know him personally.
- Was he at the Bernie thing in Iowa?
- Yes.
- Okay, he was.
- I'd met him here and there over the years,
but I think the Bernie thing was the first time
I like really talked to him.
We all went out to a bar afterwards
and I was like, "Hell yeah."
- We did, just for listeners who don't know,
we did an episode in January of '16 from Iowa
when Bernie was there speaking.
- Yeah.
- And then we played music and--
- Yeah, and Mark performed too.
And I think he was just out there also
just doing some campaigning, knocking on doors and stuff.
But I guess he or somebody in the Foster the People
organization has been chiming in on the Epstein saga
and specifically thinks that he is still alive,
the corpse is a body double,
and is getting plastic surgery in Saudi Arabia specifically.
- Yes, that's what I saw.
The best part of the thread though was,
quote, "Do your own research."
Which I love when people tell me to do my own research
on massive global news events that I'm nowhere near.
Do you mean like look at Twitter?
What do you--
- Right, it's not like you're watching a cooking show
and they're just like, "This is how much sugar I put in,
"but you know what, you figure it out.
"You do it to taste.
"You're not gonna nail this recipe the first time,
"but just do some research."
I mean, obviously there's something fishy about the story,
although it's all like an odds game, right?
Many, many global events seem fishy,
and it doesn't mean that the official events
are absolutely impossible.
It's a question of how likely are they?
Is it a four out of five probability they're true
or is it more like a one out of 10?
Who knows?
♪ But I've been trying ♪
♪ To relearn my name ♪
♪ It seems like a thousand years ♪
♪ I've been out of frame ♪
♪ And I've surrendered ♪
♪ The truth is what ♪
♪ Is what I've needed from you ♪
♪ 'Cause I've been floating within ♪
♪ Your walls of opinion ♪
♪ And I'm tired ♪
♪ I only want the truth ♪
♪ I've been trying so hard not to be that man ♪
♪ I've been found at the mercy of the need ♪
♪ There is a truth ♪
♪ There is a love ♪
♪ If you follow me then ♪
♪ I've been searching for those connections ♪
♪ And all the things the world has known you can be ♪
♪ There is a hope ♪
♪ For the world ♪
♪ I promise you that ♪
- But yeah, do your own research.
That's a tough one because for most people,
research involves being extremely online,
which it's very hard to research the truth on the internet
because you'll find so many people saying different things
that are the truth.
- You'll find things that you want to find.
- Yeah, so then to do your own research
sounds like some like Alex Jones man on the street,
just like at the prison in Manhattan.
- I've seen the documents.
- Yeah, standing in front of his townhouse
on the Upper East Side.
Let me in.
I'm a citizen journalist.
I have a petition here,
e-signed by over 1000 people on Twitter
demanding that I come in there, sir.
- Yeah, obviously the Epstein death seems fishy as hell.
- Yeah.
- In case people are confused by our tone.
I don't think he's getting facial reconstruction surgery.
- Hey, I believe that anything's possible,
but I just do want to say something.
And like I said, I like Mark and I respect him,
but just in terms of his advice,
and he's totally in his right to give his advice,
but I want to say to all the Foster the People fans
and the Imagine Dragons fans,
because you know, they squash their beef.
- Full circle.
- So because Mark is one of the only people
who had the balls to apologize to Dan from Imagine Dragons,
I think there's probably a lot of Imagine Dragons fans
who said, you know what?
We're still waiting on the guy from 1975,
but we're going to follow Mark Foster
because he's a good dude.
- I like the cut of his jib.
- I like the cut of his jib.
And you know what, sometimes you can trust somebody
even more when they admit they're wrong.
You know, virtue untested.
Is it really virtue at all, man?
But Mark's virtue was tested.
Somebody said, you know what?
You hurt my feelings.
And Mark said, you know what?
You're right.
And he checked himself and he apologized.
So anyway, I'm more concerned about the Imagine Dragons fans
who now probably follow him.
Don't fly to Saudi Arabia to try to figure this out.
A, you probably, do you speak Arabic?
I don't know.
How are you going to get around?
B, I don't know if it's a smart idea
for a citizen to go to another country
and start poking their nose around.
I mean, if this really goes all the way to the top,
I just don't think you should do it.
- Not gonna like what you find.
- That would be like, God.
That'd be like so brutal.
Just like, with the number one Foster the People fan
in Brazil who runs like the Foster the People Brazil account
just like flies to Saudi Arabia,
tries to break in somewhere, immediately in prison,
got international situation on our hands.
And I know, Mark's a good guy.
He would feel terrible just like he felt bad
about the Imagine Dragons beef.
But I'm just saying, do your own research has limits.
And in some ways it's impossible.
- The thing that I think is interesting about this,
this is the tweet.
What he's saying that's really applicable to you
is that more than ever, artists need to speak up
because they're not getting paid by sponsors
or told how to spin a story by their bosses.
Rupert Murdoch isn't controlling their narrative.
Support your artists, support real journalism,
fact check everything, do your own research.
Really what he's saying is the musicians, the artists,
should be the citizen journalists.
- I love the jump from, wait, what was it?
Support artists do real journalism?
- Yeah. - Two different professions.
- No, but I know what he means.
Man, ah man, I wish we'd thought about this before.
This is my bad.
I would actually love to get Mark on the phone.
- Well, this is classic not prepping for the show.
- This is what happens when we don't prep.
- We don't prep.
- All right, I'll see if we can get him on the phone.
- Well, let's get Mark on the next one.
- Let's try to get him on for the next one.
- Let's have the show rolls.
- Yeah, 'cause I'd love to hear more of what he has to say.
'Cause it's true up to a point.
I mean, most artists, Mark, myself included,
we've made money in some sense from sponsorship
of some type of major corporation.
The whole music world is sponsored.
And even if you're not sponsored,
you're written about on websites that are sponsored.
The only people who are fully outside that ecosystem
are some true DIY types.
But I know what he means.
He's saying speak up.
Yeah, the tough part of living in these troubled times
is that that's what everybody's saying.
- Speak up?
- He's 100% correct.
But this idea that you're saying,
listen, you can't trust most of what's going on.
And me, I'm a straight shooter.
And here's why those other people are compromised
or they're cowardly.
You know, that's why you gotta trust me.
It's the same thing that Trump says,
Alex Jones says, Glenn Greenwald,
somebody who I actually agree with most of the time.
You know, I'm just saying, it's like,
that alone is not enough to convince somebody
because everybody kind of believes
that's what they're doing a little bit.
- Damn.
- I don't think we're ever gonna get to the bottom of this.
I mean, you know, I'm very familiar with 9/11 conspiracies
because I've known all sorts of people
who feel very strongly about it.
It's, you know, and I've always been like open-minded.
Like, lay it on me, man.
Tell me what happened.
- Tower seven, dog.
- Yeah, some people, and I've always been kind of like,
you know what, man?
At the end of the day, you might be right.
I've never been some like,
you gotta trust the official narrative person.
- What's your vibe with JFK?
- Totally could have been killed by the mafias.
That what people think.
That's one of the theories.
- Yeah, I mean, the CIA, the mafia.
- That's partially what the upcoming Martin Scorsese film
The Irishman's about, I think.
- Oh, really?
- I think there's like a JFK connection.
- Wow, I didn't realize that.
I haven't seen the trailer.
- All I saw was the trailer.
- I went to the JFK museum in Dallas a year or two ago,
and the tour ends at the window that the shots were--
- What's it called, Daly Plaza or something?
- Daly Plaza.
- Daly Plaza.
- I'm not a marksman.
I'm not experienced with riflery or guns,
but I was shocked how close it was,
like from the window that he supposedly killed JFK from,
down to where there was an X on the road where the car was.
- Oh, so you looked out the window and you were just like,
oh, easy.
- Easy, yeah.
But then again, I don't know anything about
reloading a single bolt rifle.
I don't know anything about that.
And obviously Jack Ruby seems like a major
weird wild card in this story.
But just standing in the window and looking down,
I was like, that seems easy.
- Just like point blank pretty much at that point.
- I mean, it seems pretty easy.
Like they said in JFK, it's a turkey shoot.
- Great film.
- Never saw it.
- Really?
- Well, you know what, Jake, I gotta say though.
I gotta say though, to Mark's point,
you went and did the goddamn research.
- I did my own research.
- Jake did the research.
- No, but I didn't.
I don't know anything about shooting a gun.
- You just kind of made like a gun with your hand
and closed one eye and just looked down
and you're just like, pow.
- Sir, could you move on?
- Oh God, imagine the types of weird,
imagine just being like.
- Oh my God, can you imagine the (beep)
just being a tour guide there?
The people that, well, everyone has an audio guide.
It's like a mandatory audio guide, as I recall.
- Mandatory?
- And so you're just like, yeah.
- Oh, 'cause they want, you gotta listen
to the official narrative, that's why.
- Well, no, but they get into like the conspiracy theories
at the museum, but I think maybe just to like manage
the traffic flow or whatever, but there must be
just like super Walter Sobchak style dudes.
- Yeah.
- Supposed to put that window with like,
I've actually brought a replica of the gun
that Oswald's supposed to be had.
- Oh, I'm sure there's just so much
like unwanted conversation too.
Just like, you know, like some old couple
and just like the Walter type dude just being like,
ha, you don't believe that horse (beep) do you?
And they're just like, what do you mean?
And you're just like, there's no way
that the official narrative is true.
It's like, oh, okay, all right.
- Maybe that's why they have the mandatory audio tour.
- There's just too many people talking to each other.
- It's weird.
- Yeah.
♪ I dreamed I was the president of these United States ♪
♪ I dreamed I replaced ignorance, stupidity and hate ♪
♪ I dreamed the perfect union ♪
♪ And a perfect law on the isle ♪
♪ Most of all I dreamed I forgot the day John Kennedy died ♪
♪ I dreamed that I could do the job that others had done ♪
♪ I dreamed that I was uncorrupt and fair to everyone ♪
♪ I dreamed I wasn't gross or base ♪
♪ A criminal on the tape ♪
♪ And most of all I dreamed I forgot ♪
♪ The day John Kennedy died ♪
♪ Oh, the day John Kennedy died ♪
♪ Oh, the day John Kennedy died ♪
- Time Crisis.
- On Beat One.
- Well, the way I always felt about 9/11,
this is a very strange Time Crisis episode too.
It's off to a totally different tone.
The way I always felt about 9/11 was
when I'd meet people who very passionately felt
that the official narrative could not be true.
And people would show me certain evidence about,
well, why did Tower 7 fall?
There's actually a great song that Megan Amram.
- Who's that again?
- Megan is a--
- Is she a soccer player?
- Megan Rappinoe.
- She may have played soccer,
but I'll have to check on that one.
No, Megan Amram is a great,
well, she's a writer first and foremost.
She's written stuff for the New Yorker,
but she's best known as a TV writer.
She's one of the big writers on The Good Place,
and before that she was at Parks and Rec,
and she's written for Silicon Valley and The Simpsons,
and she's been a friend for a long time.
Very smart, very funny person.
And so she was really big into this song
that this guy made that's actually a very catchy song.
So I warn you.
- Oh, wait, dude, is this, was this in Catatonicues?
- Yeah, he posted it.
But yeah, Catatonicues posted this,
but I have to shout out Megan.
She literally, she put me and Nick
onto this maybe five years ago.
- Oh, wow, okay.
- So she was very early, like when this dude had no views.
He's, I think he's Australian.
- It's like hella poppy, right?
- It's very catchy.
Even without looking at it, I haven't heard it in a year,
or whatever, I saw it briefly on Catatonics.
♪ 9/11, 9/11 ♪
♪ What went down with Building 7 ♪
♪ It's a mystery to this day ♪
- Love how well you know this.
- Okay, we pulled it up.
It's called "9/11, Building 7" by Martin Oakes.
You know, even without playing it,
I still remember the opening.
♪ There's a million reasons why I can't believe it ♪
♪ There's a million reasons why it isn't true ♪
- Damn, dude.
- I think I know it pretty well.
- How do you know this so well?
- Oh, and also, I think he plays every instrument.
♪ There's a million reasons why I don't believe it ♪
- Wow.
♪ There's a million reasons why it can't be true ♪
- You gotta watch the video, people at home, too.
Martin Oakes.
♪ Open fire can't melt steel ♪
♪ It's not hot enough ♪
♪ It's nothing new, it's not a mystery ♪
♪ Check out the Reichstag, Germany ♪
♪ A million questions still remain unanswered ♪
- There's real craft to this song.
- Is he British?
- I can't, yeah, British or Australian or something.
I don't know.
Let's get a number crunch on that.
- It's like Peter Satara or Phil Collins
wrote a 9/11 conspiracy song.
- I feel like one time I started looking him up,
I was like, "Oh yeah, was he randomly in like,
you know, playing keyboards and mic'ing the mechanics
or something?"
- Totally.
♪ It's liberty ♪
♪ 9/11, 9/11 ♪
- Are you the drum shop in?
♪ What went down with building seven ♪
♪ It's a mystery to this day ♪
♪ The building fell with such precision ♪
♪ Free falls mean no reasons given ♪
♪ Like the towers in Justin's hand ♪
- What is he talking about?
- I'm actually fairly familiar with this conspiracy theory
or alternate theory.
- I know the theory, like the fire can't melt steel,
but it's like, dude, if you have like thousands of gallons
of like jet fuel exploding, it's sort of like,
is that, that's not like a--
- I'm hesitant to send anybody down this rabbit hole,
but basically, of course we're familiar with what happened
with the World Trade Center 1 and 2.
- Yeah.
- And there's footage, again, you can believe
an alternate theory if you want to,
that those planes did not have passengers on them
or weren't actually commercial,
or there's all sorts of alternate theories
or that there were already bombs in the building somehow
to take the plane crash and turn into something bigger.
Okay, but at least we're familiar with what happened there.
There was this other building,
which I remember watching fall on TV.
I was over at my friend's house
'cause they let us out of school.
And so we were sitting there watching it
and they were like, oh, that one's gonna go.
And then it fell.
That's become a major point for 9/11 conspiracy theorists
because they're like, okay, if you sheeple wanna believe
that 1 and 2 fell because of planes,
we don't believe that, but whatever.
But look at Building 7.
There was no serious structural damage,
no plane flew into it.
Why did it fall and why did it fall like that?
So when he says the building fell with such precision,
free fall speed, no reasons given,
the conspiracy theorists are saying that building fell
when they demolish an old building,
the way they load up bombs or something.
That's this thing people say,
if a building was just keeling over,
it might fall down in some awkward way.
This fell down free fall speed,
like as if there was no resistance.
Demoed.
So anyway, that's an important part of the story.
And so people talked about that with me and I said,
yeah, you know, that's weird.
That's weird, man.
It is kind of shady.
- But if it was a conspiracy
and they wanted to detonate the two trade centers
to start the war with Iraq,
it's like, why detonate Building 7 too?
You're just gonna stir up conspiracies.
Like the whole point, keep it clean if you're gonna do it.
- The theory is that by doing that,
they destroyed information.
- Oh, information.
I'm not a 9/11 truther.
I'm super out with that theory.
You heard it here, folks.
- Jake's takes on time crisis.
- And again, specifically about that, why did that fall?
I don't know, man.
- Yeah.
- But my larger point about that one,
and that one I have a more clear cut feeling
because I remember that I was a senior in high school
when 9/11 happened.
And you know, it's in the town I grew up in,
I grew up in a very small town
and there were like 11 people died in the town.
- Wow, from your town?
- Yeah.
- There were commuters?
- Yeah, there's a plaque in the town for a bunch of people.
Remember my dad was on his way to work
in Manhattan that day.
So anyway, that happened.
It was like this kind of really dark emotional thing,
obviously for many, many people.
And then I remember though,
then the next year I'm a freshman in college
and that's when there was the big no war march
or anti-war march in New York.
And I kind of remember being like,
I'd never been in a crowd that big before.
So I only like met up with some friends and we went down
and it was just like,
I think it was a million people on the streets.
It was truly one of the biggest protests
that's ever happened, at least in New York City.
And I just remember like looking at so many people
and just being like, and again,
there wasn't like a 9/11 conspiracy presence there.
The vibe of this anti-war march was not,
guys, we'd be super down if the official story was true.
We just don't want to go to war
because it's clearly an inside job.
Nobody said that.
The whole point of that was,
even if you buy the official narrative of 9/11,
that's still not a good reason to go to war with Iraq
and the real conspiracy.
- That's why it kills the conspiracy theories.
- Well, it doesn't kill the conspiracy theory
'cause I like to--
- The official narrative is so idiotic to begin with.
- Well, I like to give people latitude to be like,
you know what man, you might be right.
Like, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you
that I know exactly how buildings should look
when they fall or something.
The thing we can both agree on
is that we all got bamboozled by something else.
There's like a--
- It's way more naked.
- Right, there's a,
so sometimes I feel like,
well, we're never gonna know about that for sure
and I'm not gonna be condescending and be like,
well, I read in the New York Times that, you know,
this is what happened, or 'cause I read the looming tower,
I know exactly, you know, that's not my vibe.
I'm kind of a live and let live type dude.
But I'll just say,
but I'll say I'm pretty sure
we'll never know what happened though.
And isn't it kind of funny that,
I'll know one thing for sure,
I stood in a crowd of a million people
saying we don't wanna go to a war and we still did.
Well, that's not even a conspiracy theory.
That's just the terrible way that things work.
- Well, it's just like the Epstein thing,
like to go full circle.
I mean, assuming, you know,
him committing suicide seems pretty fishy.
So it seems pretty like bald,
nakedly sort of like power hungry just to be like,
oh yeah, he committed suicide, right?
That's the narrative, believe it.
- Right.
- And everyone's like, really?
It's like, they don't need to do conspiracies.
That's what I'm saying.
- Well, in a way, it's, well,
you could still say they needed 9/11
even to kick off that whole program.
But I guess, yeah, the funny part is that
people are so stupid or weak willed or immoral or something
that even without the really crazy conspiracy theories,
just insane stuff happens all the time.
And you know, I think for me,
that was like a major moment of disillusionment,
especially here I am living in New York City.
I'm an adult now
and I'm watching a million people in the street
and there's even Democrats voting for the war.
That was definitely some like, whoa,
the world is like insane.
- I better start a band.
- I better start a band, man.
The world needs some music.
The only thing that's gonna heal this thing is music.
No, but I didn't start the band for a few years.
I was doing original research for the--
- Right, right, right.
- Up until then.
- Doing your own research.
- I was doing my own research, but yeah.
So I guess my point is sometimes that,
and I understand why people get fired up
'cause people wanna know the truth, man.
I get it.
But sometimes it's kinda like,
well, what's most important is what happens afterwards
and does it actually logically follow?
Because even if tomorrow somebody could tell me,
well, yeah, 9/11, here's how it got done.
There were seven people in the Bush administration
who got together and they planted the bombs
and they blah, blah, and they planned it out
and I'd be like, and a bunch of people admitted
that like, yo, guilty as charged, man.
This did not involve Osama bin Laden at all.
These countries teamed up and this is, you know,
secret society.
Either they proved all that stuff--
- Did Bush know?
Hell no.
- Oh yeah, probably not Bush.
But even if somebody could prove all that to me,
I'd be like, damn, that's dark.
But then I'd also be like, but I still can't believe
we went toward Iraq.
That's the crazy part.
- No, this still shouldn't have worked.
- Like, yeah, if you could prove to me
that a very small group of powerful people
did something behind closed doors,
I'd be like, oh, whoa, okay, that's crazy.
I didn't know that.
But then the stuff that happens in plain sight
is still even more brutal.
- Yeah.
- It's like, you tell me that there's a bipartisan support
to go to war in this country that millions of lives lost
in American and Iraqi.
And so, you know, even with this Epstein thing,
whether he's alive or not alive or whatever,
it's kind of like, well, what's gonna happen next?
That's almost the more important part.
I mean, of course you want justice for people
who were hurt and abused,
but many of the people who are talking about it
don't even seem that particularly concerned about that.
- Right.
- They're more concerned with this global conspiracy
of like power and stuff.
And it's like, well, all right,
we're gonna see what happens.
You know, and by the way, Jeff Bezos still not paying tax.
You know, Amazon's not paying taxes.
- Not a single nickel.
- I'm sure Jeff Bezos is, but so yeah,
I'm not gonna make a personal, but Amazon's not.
- Bezos is paying his personal income tax.
- Yeah.
- Should we finish this terrific song?
- Oh yeah, this is a great song.
♪ Fire's not enough ♪
- Such a well-written song.
- What is this guy's other material?
Like does he have a whole like YouTube channel
of conspiracy songs?
- I feel like I looked, he had at least a few other songs,
but one thing that I was gonna say is that
clearly this Epstein story is gonna continue
to have a ripple effect.
Whatever happens, I doubt it's gonna end in like
global clarity about what, you know, his actual fate.
- Right.
- I have a feeling, a bad feeling, and I said this,
I was having a conversation with Bayo actually on tour
before Epstein was found dead, just about the whole story.
And I said, I just have a feeling whatever happens,
it's gonna be good for Trump.
Because you know, a lot of people looked at this story
in a partisan way.
If you're a Democrat, you're kind of like--
- Hashtag Trump body count.
- Trump's going down off this.
And then the Republicans immediately, Clinton body count.
And I just had this feeling, I was like--
- Both are completely asinine.
- Even if somehow he is implicated,
trying to cover his own ass and did despicable things,
the candidate that seems to benefit time and time again
from anything shady involving the Clinton family,
even though he's shady, and the candidate who seems
to benefit from kind of like widespread distrust
in the system, even though he currently is the president
of the system, is Donald Trump, you know what I mean?
So it's like, let's say you did find out that Jeb Ramsay
was in Saudi Arabia, or that he was murdered,
and I just don't see it.
It's a bad feeling, but I feel like it's,
the fact that even Bill Clinton knew him,
it's like already a win for Trump, kind of.
- Even though Trump partied with him, that's hilarious.
- Because Trump's shameless.
- Yeah, and if you're shameless, that's incredibly powerful.
The other thing is, the election is 15, 16 months out.
This is ancient history by then.
Whatever random dumb story is happening
in like October of 2020, will have like
some inordinate effect on whatever happens.
- Right, if there's a recession.
- Right.
- Something like that. - Or whatever.
Just some other billionaire did something dumb.
- Oh, I'm just saying, a recession would actually
have an impact on Trump, I think.
♪ The state draws near ♪
♪ And our freedom slips away ♪
♪ And they don't give a stuff ♪
♪ They make that clear enough ♪
♪ So now it's up to us to bring it down ♪
♪ Down ♪
- So you know what, we made it happen very quickly.
That's the time crisis away.
We get an idea, we see it through.
As we were talking about Epstein and the tweets,
we said we should get Mark Foster on the show.
And you know what, he was pretty close by.
We put out the bat signal,
and now Mark is here in the studio.
What's up, Mark?
- How you guys doing?
- Not bad.
So it's funny with Twitter, just like kind of a brief thought
can turn into something big.
So you were just saying that, you know,
you woke up the next morning,
and you were just, the amount of pickup
about your specific tweet was kind of like shocking.
- Yeah, it was shocking for a number of reasons.
I mean, one that, you know, news articles
started to pick it up and people started to run with it.
But also that there were a lot of, you know,
you can check to see like what verified accounts
are, you know, tagging you, talking to you.
All these verified accounts from like--
- Across the political spectrum?
- NBC, CNN, all, yeah, all of these, you know,
commentators and people that, you know, don't,
they don't follow the band, they're not fans.
It's not like, and they're all commenting on it.
And it's like, I kicked a hornet's nest.
And so it was kind of like, oh, wow.
So I kind of went deeper on it, I guess,
as opposed to shying away,
which is always a tricky thing, I think.
I mean, especially the fact that I use the bands.
I mean, I don't have like a personal Twitter.
And so that's kind of my only voice.
And I don't tweet about things
that are outside of the music spectrum,
unless I'm like furious or passionate about something.
- Right, this is one of those things where I was just furious.
- If somebody actually knew you,
'cause I was talking about how like,
maybe one of the last times we saw each other
was campaigning for Bernie in Iowa, right?
- Yep.
- You're a very politically engaged person
and following the news and stuff.
So probably somebody who knows you wouldn't be surprised
that you might have strong feelings
about like a major event like that.
But yeah, maybe some people just like
on the official Foster the People account,
just kind of like, yeah, well,
what was the tweet before that?
Like, hey, announcing new tour dates, like.
- Yeah, we like just released a song.
It's one of those things where it's like,
when I look at like this point in history,
I guess what makes me furious is that
it seems like the biggest government coverup
maybe since Lee Harvey Oswald and the Kennedy assassination.
- Oh, I just gotta say, just 'cause you weren't here,
we were talking about that.
Jake's been to the plaza in Dallas
and he kind of looked out the window and he was like,
it wouldn't be hard to make the shot.
That was Jake's take.
Just a, I don't know.
- I went to the museum, yeah.
- I've been there.
- Yeah, yeah.
- So did you stand at the window?
- Yeah, the final stop of the tour is the window.
- So when you were eyeballing it from the window,
were you like?
- Oh, I mean, no, I don't doubt that he did it.
- Yeah.
- Why?
- But it's the fact that, you know,
after 20 hours of being interrogated,
none of it was released
and then the seals were filed for 75 years.
And even when like Trump, you know,
wanted to raise his public, well, you know.
- Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
- Like you said, he was gonna release the Kennedy files
and then even then he couldn't release them all.
And it's like, if you can't release them all now
and you're the president,
then there's something that obviously implicates
your own government that you don't want people to see.
And so it's like, yeah, it's like.
- Everybody's dead.
♪ I wouldn't try to throw myself away ♪
♪ If you asked me ♪
♪ I'd say ♪
♪ To be careful my love ♪
♪ At death will leave the same ♪
♪ If you want me ♪
♪ To say don't keep me waiting for it ♪
♪ We can't change the things we can't control ♪
♪ It's summer somewhere so you shouldn't be so cold ♪
♪ But you can't even look me in the eye if you try ♪
♪ We can try, we can try ♪
♪ I see us dancing by ourselves ♪
♪ We do it better with no one around ♪
♪ Yeah, just you in my imagination ♪
♪ Yeah, in my imagination ♪
♪ Oh ♪
- So what is it about this one,
obviously we live in an insane world
with injustices and coverups and lies every day.
So what is it about this one that really like,
you couldn't think anything as crazy
until going back 50 years?
- Well, I'd known about Epstein for,
I've heard about him for a long time.
Like even in the early 2000s,
I remember hearing about the Lolita Express.
Basically, you know, this guy
that would take underage girls to his island
and was friends with all these
really wealthy and powerful people.
And then he got like busted.
I didn't even know that he got busted.
I just, I remember hearing kind of the rumors
about this guy a long time ago.
And then it all kind of coming to a head this year.
He gets arrested and I'm like, oh my God,
you know, like justice is gonna be,
this guy that's like skated around the law for so long
that we're actually gonna get some answers.
And I have a million questions, as I'm sure
a lot of people do, of how this happened.
It's like, if you have this guy who's arguably
one of the most important witnesses in custody
in the history of the US,
because he's got potentially incredibly damaging information
on two presidents, one currently active,
and who knows who else, you know,
you got Prince Andrew in there,
you've got all these other people
that have been implicated hanging out
with Epstein on his island.
And then this happens.
And after Suicide Watch, and then you start to like,
look at the facts of the guards weren't checking on him.
He was taken off Suicide Watch.
His cellmate was transferred the day before.
- Well, that's one, I think maybe one of the reasons
why your tweets really got a lot of people talking
was because when I kind of looked at social media
and the news the day it came out,
the vast majority of like independent commentators,
you know, maybe obviously not like
the New York Times headliner,
but the vast majority of independent commentators
were saying, this is fishy.
I don't believe this guy died.
But you went a step beyond, which is interesting.
And I've been doing some research
and even I was like looking up about
this New York Post photo of his body
being taken into the hospital and comparing it.
And so I was looking at the Snopes article about it,
and there's the Foster the People tweet
in the Snopes article about it.
So in some ways you've become,
whether or not you want it to be,
you're the voice for that particular theory.
So that's what I'm curious about is,
was it the photo that set you off?
'Cause you're like, I don't believe that's the same guy,
or already you just didn't think--
- Or did you read something somewhere?
- No, no, no, I just saw the photo.
And then I saw the side by side.
- What about before you saw the photo?
Did you already in the back of your head think like,
I bet he's not even dead?
- I think you go through all the realm of possibilities
of like what happened, what could have happened.
But the photo to me, and look, I'm not a forensics expert.
I put out a (beep) tweet, you know what I mean?
- Right.
- And then like just being a musician
that wanted to put out a tweet and like start
a public discourse on this guy.
But it's like you look at the photo
and it's not the same guy.
And I know that when people die, look--
- Well, and just to fill everybody in,
when I looked at the Snopes article,
and obviously Snopes can't verify it's the same guy,
but they were just saying,
here's one thing to keep in mind.
The pictures that were side by side
were taken 15 years apart,
and they're from different sides of his face.
So maybe, that's how they kind of put it.
They weren't coming down hard one way or the other.
- 15 years apart, sure, but I mean,
even the photos of Epstein
when he was arrested in court recently.
Are there some profile shots that--
- I mean, there's some head-on shots.
There's not like a profile shot that you can A/B.
But even the head-on shot,
like he looks much younger than the guy.
The nose is different.
He's got deep lines around his mouth.
And the photo of the guy that's on the stretcher
or whatever, just said they don't exist.
And I could be wrong.
It could be him, and I know that like when you die,
things change, you physically change.
- And sometimes people look really different
from photo to photo.
- Sure. - Do you know what I mean?
- Sure.
- Sometimes you're like, "That's me?"
- Sure, totally. - You know, I don't know.
- I mean, I think I'm not gonna like hang my hat up
and say like, "I believe that the body was switched,"
and like, you know, stand by that.
- Right, you were asking the question.
- I mean, I think the bigger question
is what really happened to Jeffrey Epstein and why, you know?
- Right, even in the most extreme circumstances,
it's hard to understand why anybody
would wanna keep him alive.
Like, it just seems easier to kill him.
- I have some theories.
- Actually, you wanna tell, 'cause here's my question.
You know, I've read a little bit.
I don't know as much as you, but there's a lot of people.
Okay, so people have wondered,
"What's Jeffrey Epstein's deal?"
Everything from he could be an intelligence asset
being used by multiple intelligence agencies
from all around the world, the CIA, Mossad, whatever.
- I think that's 100%, by the way, that he's a spy.
- And even if somebody's a spy,
it doesn't mean everything they do is spy-esque.
It means that an intelligence agency
saw how that person could be of value.
- Sure.
- So, you know, maybe he's already running
the Lolita Express and somebody's like,
"Ooh, powerful man, up to no good on a plane.
"Let's talk to this guy and see if he can help us,
"or let's pressure him."
My feeling is that if you're dealing
with these hardcore intelligence agencies
who are doing manipulative, sneaky stuff around the world,
and you got somebody who's in custody who might talk,
you know, similar to when mobsters have somebody
who's gonna testify against them,
the easiest thing to do would be to have them killed.
So if you're gonna go to the trouble
of getting somebody into the prison,
now explain to me why somebody might wanna actually
go through this extra hassle of keeping somebody alive.
- Well, I mean, A, I think that the island
that he had set up, it seems to be like
it was some sort of a honeypot situation
to where it's like--
- Get some footage of--
- Get footage, and he was known for that.
He was known for filming other people
and their sexual exploits.
He has tapes on a ton of powerful people.
You know, Alexander Acosta, who resigned
after being the Secretary of Labor--
- And gave him the sweetheart deal.
- He gave him the sweetheart deal.
In an interview, he said that when they were pressing him,
saying like, "Why did you give him this sweetheart deal?"
He said, "Basically, I was told
"that he was above my pay grade,
"that he was intelligence, and to stay away from him."
And that's documented.
So who was this guy?
I don't know.
You know, Mossad, GRU.
- What's GRU?
- That's like the Russian intelligence.
- Oh, yeah.
- Or did he work for Saudi Arabia?
I mean, the passport that they found in the safe
said that he lived in Saudi Arabia.
It was an Austrian passport.
And then the madam, the woman that procured
all these underage girls and kind of ran things for him,
his business partner, her father was high up in the Mossad.
- Right, I read about that.
The only thing that I'll say about some of these things
is that, this is certainly not to refute anything
that you're saying, and I wonder if you find this too.
Couple indie rock musicians, you know.
We've seen--
- No, I don't know.
Probably neither of us define--
- We would be incredible spies, by the way.
I've always thought that there would be like
a musician shit that would be a great spy
'cause we're from countries around the world.
- That's true.
- No one would suspect you guys.
- No, everybody's just like,
"Oh, he's a dumbass musician.
"What are they gonna do?"
(laughing)
- The handoff needs to happen at MoPOP in Detroit.
No, but I'm saying, yeah, I don't know if either of us
identify as indie rock musicians,
but I would just say, like, we're people who spend time
in New York, in LA, meet powerful people,
even just powerful media figures.
- I guess one thing that I've found
as I've been around more powerful and rich people sometimes
is that there's a certain mundane aspect to some of this.
So, for instance, this is no way to stick up
for Jeffrey Epstein or any of his buddies,
but when I would see a lot of people on the internet
saying stuff like, "Yeah, you don't fly on a guy's
"private plane five times and don't know what he's up to."
And I was kinda like, "Actually, you do."
(laughing)
Not that I've, I haven't been on very many private planes
in my life, but when you're around,
even just like DJs, there's a type of person
who are just in settings where somebody's like,
"I'm ripping back to the Hamptons right now on the PJ.
"There's eight seats."
And somebody would be like, "Oh, I'll take it."
So this idea that there's an intimacy,
to me it's kind of the equivalent of just like,
you know, somebody would be like,
"You don't catch a ride five times with like a dude
"in your grad school program and not know what he's up to."
Like, there is a way in which these seemingly big deal
things are just a natural result of these people
existing in the same kinda social milieu.
- So even I kinda wonder when people were talking about
if Ghislain Maxwell's father,
he's known as a Mossad agent or something,
just the idea that a wealthy guy
who was a Mossad agent's daughter
would end up becoming in the inner circle
of another wealthy guy
who might have intelligence connections.
The crazy thing is, that could borderline
still be a coincidence, just because powerful people
tend to hang out together.
So I'm sure there's all sorts of funny stuff
where like, somebody's like,
"Oh, what, you work for the Russians?
"That's crazy, my dad worked for Saudi Arabia."
And they're like, "Wow, and we just met
"on the rowing team at Harvard, wild."
And this never came up for 20 years.
So anyway, that's my one caveat with some of this stuff.
The funny thing about a global elite
is it's gonna create a lot of coincidences
just because it's the global elite.
- It's a very small group of people.
- It's a small group of people.
But this Saudi Arabia thing is definitely fascinating.
So that's why you--
- Okay, so no, I mean, back to your original question.
I mean, the only thing that I can think of,
and obviously it's a stretch,
but it's interesting to think about is that
if he was working for a foreign government,
and if he was collecting this compromat
or information that's damaging towards our politicians
or billionaires or whatever, powerful people,
that they would most likely have a copy of it.
If he was working for a foreign government
and he was worth something to them,
if he went into this and he's,
whatever relationship he has with them,
if they wanna protect him,
and they threaten Trump or our government
with damning material that they'll release
without the release of Epstein,
if he had diplomatic immunity
while he was operating under this,
which I think that he probably did
based on the deal that he got from Acosta.
- That maybe the US was like,
"All right, technically we have to send him back
"to Saudi Arabia, so we're gonna cook up this whole scheme."
- I don't know, I mean, I don't know.
I just wouldn't put it past.
Why would that be harder for them
to swap him out with somebody that looks somewhat like him
or to try to doctor somebody that'll look like him
and swap him out in the middle of the night
when they basically told the guards to back off,
they stopped monitoring his cell,
they moved his cellmate out, they cleared it all out?
It's the US government.
They could walk in there, swap him out, trade him back.
- Well, that seems easier to do than 9/11.
Before you came in, I was also,
we were also talking about 9/11 conspiracies, which again--
- It ain't hard.
- 'Cause that's the thing also,
when I've talked to people who feel very strongly
about 9/11 being an inside job,
and as I was saying before, you came here,
I'm a very live and let live, open-minded kind of guy.
I'm like, "Hey man, I don't believe everything
"the New York Times says."
Like, sure, tell me why you think that is.
But one thing about that is always like,
"Well, if that in fact was an inside job,
"I'm glad they didn't ask me to help
"'cause that sounds like a lot of work.
"That sounds very, very complicated."
Where you're right, compared to that,
'cause maybe you could do that with five people,
I don't know, I believe that.
I believe you could swap a body and get a guy on a,
I mean, if you're talking about somebody that has--
- On a PJ to Saudi Arabia?
- If you're talking about somebody that has information
that's going to bring down your entire government,
you know, from the top down,
they're not gonna stop at anything.
- That's one question that I have is 'cause,
and I know this is not what you're gesturing at,
but within the world of conspiracy theorists,
there's kind of like a spectrum.
There's people, obviously on one end of the spectrum,
you have people who are not conspiracy theorists who say,
"I believe what the mainstream media says, it's the truth."
And then on the other side, the most extreme side,
you have people who say, "Not only is that not the truth,
"the very nature of reality that you understand
"is not the truth, and that these guys are hiding
"big secrets about the way the entire universe
"is structured," and that seems a little bit extreme too.
And, you know, what you're saying is something in between
about the way the intelligence community
gathers information and blackmails.
You're like, "Sure, I believe that there's all sorts
"of stuff that we don't know about
"that exists in that world."
I guess one question that I have,
and again, I also wanna make the point
that it's very cool of you to come on the show
because your whole thing that you said
when I actually read all of the tweets,
when you said do your own research,
you weren't actually encouraging Foster the People fans
to fly to Saudi Arabia.
This is your chance to clarify that, right?
- That's not-- - Right.
You were kinda just saying--
- It was more of a broad statement of like, you know,
you need to read information and not just watch television
for your news.
- Right, and also your point about like,
yeah, I'm an artist-- - Or get your news
from memes. - But I'm also an artist
and I'm just a person who kinda is just talking about stuff.
Like, yeah, so when I saw the whole context of it,
you're definitely not trying to like say,
"Guys, I'm an expert on this and I know what happened."
So I feel bad now peppering you with the questions,
just kinda like, "Well, tell me about this."
But I just, so I just wanna make clear,
we're just talking about it.
♪ We're born to die ♪
♪ So I'm gonna fight for how I wanna live ♪
♪ Spark up the riots ♪
♪ Guess I'm a criminal and a futurist ♪
♪ Well, the charges I've caught won't stand your trial ♪
♪ You can take it out on me ♪
♪ Yeah, I've been to hell ♪
♪ But I've learned to keep my cool ♪
♪ Hold on to the devil ♪
♪ Got him by the throat 'cause I refuse ♪
♪ Yeah, I won't take my last breath in denial ♪
♪ But you can't take it from me ♪
♪ Yeah, I've seen peaks been released ♪
♪ Into the prisons below ♪
♪ My days here disappear ♪
♪ There's things that I can't ignore ♪
♪ The sweetest release might take a while ♪
♪ So take me out in style ♪
♪ Yeah, you ♪
♪ Yeah, just take me out in style ♪
♪ If you're gonna take me out ♪
♪ Take me out in style ♪
- So one thing that's crossed my mind thinking about it,
and I could believe anything, man, almost anything,
but why, so what you're saying makes sense.
Like, sure, there's a plausible explanation
for why it might be important to get that guy out of there,
and he's a foreign intelligence asset,
and the US has a diplomatic community.
I can believe that.
But there's also a part of me, it's like,
why does the global elite care so much
about these three knuckleheads?
Bill Clinton's basically on his last legs
in terms of public standing.
Trump kind of seems like more trouble than he's worth.
Prince Andrew, not even Prince Charles, like, who?
There's like a part of me that's like,
okay, let's say there are like nine kind of powerful dudes.
The global elite could keep on truck
and could be like, oh my God.
- I mean, if we're talking in that universe
of the global elite making the call for this to happen,
I don't really think the global elite
would have made the call for this to happen,
'cause I don't think they would care
about something like that.
I think that it would be Donald Trump,
basically our government, protecting their own asses.
- In some ways, specifically protecting Trump.
- The Clintons don't have, they don't have the power.
There's no way the Clintons could be behind,
that was like the one thing when all the fallout,
all that stuff, it's like, okay,
like they're out of power.
They couldn't pull this off if they wanted to,
but our current government could.
And especially if you look at, you know,
Attorney General Bill Barr, and you look at Acosta,
two guys that were closely related to Epstein
and protecting Epstein, Barr was,
he worked for the attorney's office
that represented Epstein in the sweetheart deal.
Acosta was the lawyer that gave him the deal.
And both those guys were then promoted heavily
by Donald Trump, who's keeping those people close to him
that helped protect this guy
that might have some dark secrets on him.
- Maybe that's been my question,
is because you know with spicy topics like this,
you'll see such a range of opinion,
and you'll see people taking it into like,
well, you gotta understand, this is like
the whole fate of the world hinges on this,
and you're kind of saying, no, maybe it's actually,
it's as simple as-- - It's more like
a mafia thing. - Yeah, it's as simple
as one guy trying to protect his ass and using,
and the intelligence community's being like,
eh, we don't wanna really release details
about how we do stuff.
Yeah, like maybe it's actually not,
there's something about the word conspiracy theory
that sometimes makes people think of like,
you know, reptilians and like, aliens and stuff.
It could be as simple as just like a few people
being like, whoa, let's see--
- There's probably only a handful of people
that know what happened.
I don't think that there's hundreds of people involved,
that there's some order, it's like, you can't keep a secret,
you know, it's like, but you can keep a secret
with five people.
- The darkest thing of all that I was saying is,
and I wonder what you think about this,
my feeling is that there's almost no way
that this is a bad thing for Trump.
The fact that the Clinton name
is even remotely associated with this,
because Trump is the epitome of shamelessness,
he's the 0.1% of bacteria that don't get killed
by bacterial sites, because he clearly is the Teflon Don,
and his fans and supporters will turn anything
into a win for him, and then you see him, you know,
retweeting the Clinton body count stuff.
There's a part of me that's like,
there could be all sorts of stuff that comes out
in the next few months, and I still have this weird feeling
that it's gonna be a win for him.
- Another reason why I think he's so desperate to protect,
you know, now he's campaigning for the next election already
and he's so desperate to protect his name and to win again,
because he knows that if he wins again,
he can hide behind executive privilege,
he's protected for another four years from going to jail.
- And all sorts of other lawsuits.
- All sorts of everything, you know,
he's skirted around pretty much any kind of law,
there's no rule of law right now.
- Yeah.
- So I mean, when it's applied to President Trump
and anybody that's around him,
he's made that clear.
So I think like his number one fear right now
is that he's gonna get unseated
and that he's gonna have to like go to court
in the state of New York and at a federal level,
all these open, you know, cases against him
are gonna come to fruition and he's gonna,
who knows what'll happen.
- Well, shifting gears to the message of hope,
you still, you still,
you think there's anybody who could beat him?
You still like Bernie?
- I think that every Democrat running right now
has a chance to beat him.
- Yeah, I agree with that, they all have a chance.
- I think it's gonna be interesting.
- I think it's the Dems to lose,
which could easily happen.
- I just hope it's not Biden.
- I know.
- Biden's kind of the easiest one to see losing in a way.
- Yeah.
- Having just some major brain fart on stage
during those debates.
- Yeah, it's not looking good.
He seemed to think that he was the vice president
during the Parkland shooting recently.
- Yeah, some basic cognitive problems.
- Not a strong look.
♪ All my worst nights are the best times ♪
♪ Whiskers stealing all my shut eye ♪
♪ All my worst nights are the good kinds ♪
♪ Highlight filter through the low fives ♪
♪ Starting it up after dark ♪
♪ Chasing thoughts cruising through Echo Park ♪
♪ Join the vote to see it in paradise ♪
♪ I get tilted, yeah, we'll pay the price ♪
♪ Lame and nice, never say goodbye ♪
♪ We say hello ♪
♪ Dissipating in the sunshine and the snow ♪
♪ All my worst nights are the best times ♪
♪ Whiskers stealing all my shut eye ♪
♪ All my worst nights are the good kinds ♪
♪ Highlight filter through the low fives ♪
- Mark, while you're here,
you have come up on the show before.
We normally don't cover too much kind of politics.
We haven't covered Jeffrey Epstein too much,
but we have covered Imagine Dragons quite a bit.
- Okay.
- And when the guy from Imagine Dragons,
Dan, wrote his thing about, you know,
how it bums him out that everybody's picking on him,
we covered that and we talked about that.
- Right.
- And we were very happy to see that
of all the people he talked about
who kind of hurt his feelings,
you were the only person who apologized.
So we gave you a lot of props for that.
So you're welcome.
- Oh wait.
- We gave you a lot of props.
- Oh, thank you.
- No, but I really thought,
and you know, it's like,
- Very kind.
- And we were just talking about it recently
because as opposed to you kind of like taking a step back
and being like, "Damn, maybe I said something
"that hurt somebody that wasn't cool."
And you apologized unreservedly.
One of the guys from the 1975,
he went the other direction.
He was just like, "Man, why do you care?
"Shut the, like," he was kind of like,
whatever, but whatever, that's a whole nother story.
Anyway, so I just wanted to say,
I thought that was cool of you.
I'm curious, like, you and that guy from Madden Dragons
know each other at all,
or this was all just happening fully
across the universe of the internet?
- We've definitely met like in passing early, early, early on
I think like the third Foster the People show ever,
they were on the bills at the Viper Room.
- Yeah.
- But I mean, the whole band had changed.
Like when they emerged like three years later,
you know, that's like when we were all kind of just like,
you know, small, tiny bands just starting out.
But no, I don't really know.
I don't really know him.
It was a passing comment, but it was more--
- Whatever you said, I don't think was particularly mean.
- No, but I mean, it was more about his reaction
and kind of like realizing like, oh, okay.
I don't want to disparage anybody else for their art,
and I just feel like it was just kind of like,
just take the high road and support somebody
who obviously wants to do good things for his community,
you know, and like separate myself
from the music itself.
It's like the guy's a good guy.
I think that sometimes, you know,
like a battle in music, whether it's hip hop
or rock or whatever,
if both parties kind of understand what's going on,
then they can kind of turn it into a game,
and then it becomes some sort of entertainment,
kind of like this weird meta form of entertainment
where it's like they both know the game they're playing,
and they both go back and forth,
and the press kind of like--
- Pro-wrestling.
- I mean, look at Oasis.
Look at Liam and Noel.
- Right.
- Like they play off each other brilliantly in the press,
and they've kept Oasis completely relevant
for the last like 20 years.
- Right.
- And like the second Oasis announced the tour
and they get back together,
it's gonna make an astronomical amount of money.
- Oh, it'll be huge.
- Because people are gonna be like,
"Wow, the two brothers, they're together again on stage.
"Can you believe it?
"They're not fist fighting."
And then the ticket sales go down,
they'll like, you know, they'll get into some kind
of fist fight. - It's a way better narrative
than just like--
- It's real life.
It's Jerry Springer.
- Things cooled off.
Fifth album wasn't received as well as the first three,
and you know, they got into some different stuff.
Noel really got into golf, and yeah, they talk all the time.
They love to do a few gigs.
You know, it just depends on schedule.
It's like, yeah, versus like,
"Holy (beep) I never thought I'd see those two guys
"on stage together again."
- Right.
- Yeah, it's way better.
- Way better, way better.
But yeah, I mean, it was so, you know, look,
you know, when he came out and said that,
it was so genuine, and it really like,
really struck me, and we're just like, oh man.
- Right, so you didn't feel defensive.
You were just immediately like, oh man.
I'm sure you probably didn't even remember
whatever you said.
It's not like this was a campaign you waged against them.
- No, no, and it's just, I don't know.
It's just kind of (beep)
It's like, we're all artists making music.
I feel like music's supposed to be unifying.
Art is subjective anyway.
It's like, who am I to like,
disparage somebody else for something they,
obviously a lot of other people like it.
- Yeah. - You know?
I don't need to be that guy.
- I think just anybody who like, makes music,
or thinks deeply about music,
there's all sorts of music that maybe, you know,
I didn't like when I was 12,
and then I liked it when I was 17,
and then I didn't like it again,
and now I think it's actually really interesting.
So there's even that aspect too,
that it's like a throwaway comment
about how you feel about music in a moment.
Yeah, you might have meant it then.
I don't like this, but then, yeah, who knows?
In a different context, or getting to know somebody,
you hear it totally differently too, so.
- Totally, yeah.
- Well, Mark, thanks so much for coming in.
And actually, just to kind of reiterate,
the main focus of your tweets,
which was not necessarily which narrative is correct,
but what do you want to say to the people,
like the general,
'cause I liked your general statement
about thinking for yourself, you know?
- I guess I would say that I feel like we're, you know,
we're living in an age of misinformation.
People need to do their own research and dig,
and not believe everything that you hear.
- And another thing, I'm a little bit of a pessimist
in that I feel like with a lot of these cover-ups
and, you know, misinformation campaigns,
I'm a pessimist in the sense that I'm sympathetic
to a lot of different theories,
or at least I'm open to them,
but I have this kind of feeling like,
oh, we're never gonna know.
- We're never gonna know.
- Yeah, like we're never gonna know.
So I think in some ways--
- 100% agree, we're never gonna know.
- So again, when I actually saw your tweets in context,
and I thought like, okay, did Jeffrey Epstein
go get John Travolta's face put on him in Saudi Arabia?
We're never going to know.
We will never know the real story.
So what you said on Twitter,
let's say that story's 100% accurate.
You'll never be proven right,
because we will never know that.
- You'll only know if I drive off of a bridge
that was considered to be, if I die from natural causes.
- Well, yeah, and even then.
Well, we'll fight, we'll keep your memory alive
and fight for the truth on TC,
but yeah, even then you'll never know.
So I think the interesting point that you're making
is like a healthy distrust of information,
maybe no falsehood people are gonna go to Saudi Arabia
and crack the case on that one,
but I think the real point you're making is,
okay, this is clearly very shady.
So maybe next time you can make a decision,
you can make a decision,
like choosing who you're gonna vote for,
or watch the way that the different Democrats
talk to each other, and one person says,
"I think this is a big problem."
Somebody says, "Oh, man, we don't have time
"to worry about that," or that's bull (beep).
I do think that there's a kind of mindset.
You can't take the truth away from this.
I don't think that's gonna happen,
but you could take a mindset away
that can hopefully be applied for good.
- Well, I think it's just also just pay attention
to the larger picture of kind of what's happening
with the media, with stories getting spun,
and with the way that people are getting manipulated
one way or the next based on whatever narrative
people wanna put out there. - Well, there was just
another one this week, a much smaller story.
I don't know if you saw this, that Bernie Sanders,
we were talking about how conspiracy in plain sight
is kind of how Amazon doesn't pay taxes.
And again, let's give Jeff Bezos a break for a second.
Let's just say that's (beep) up that that company does that.
And so Bernie was doing press,
and he rails against Amazon,
says, "I don't like the way they operate.
"I don't like the fact that they didn't pay a nickel
"in taxes."
And then he said, "And you know, by the way,
"the Washington Post owned by Jeff Bezos,
"maybe that's why they don't like me."
And the truth is,
the Washington Post has gone pretty hard on Bernie.
It's not like he's pulling that out of nowhere.
But then what was interesting is that I saw a lot
of Bernie supporters being like, "Thank you."
And then I saw a lot, a lot of other people being like,
"Oh, Bernie, the press is against me.
"Trump-esque conspiracy theories, like chill out, man."
And I was kind of like shocked.
I was like, "Look, again, you don't need to,
"whether he's in Saudi Arabia, dead, or killed himself,
"whatever you think, there's something fishy
"about the Epstein thing.
"You just think a few days after that,
"there might be, even if you can't take away the truth
"from the Epstein situation,
"you could take away some healthy distrust and be like,
"you know what, Bernie?
"I might not agree with you about politics,
"but you're absolutely right
"that billionaires owning the press
"probably makes information flow in a way
"that's good for them and not necessarily good
"for everybody else."
But it was amazing how many people got angry
at Bernie for saying that.
- Of course.
I looked it up before I came in here.
- Oh, really?
- I was just curious who ran basically mass media
around the world.
And it comes down to about, I think it's 15 guys
that own-- - Own all these mega companies.
- The mega companies and conglomerates,
where they all, how they all spider web out
of kind of the main brain of the company.
15 people, you know?
So they can control the narrative basically
for the news around the entire world.
And the thing about, I guess that rattled me
about this Epstein story was that it reminded me
of the Steven Paddock shooting in Vegas.
Because that whole thing, I'm convinced, was a coverup.
And I was haunted by it for months.
- Oh, so you feel like the people just never knew
the true story?
- We never, no, we never got the story.
- And just to clarify, this is the guy who set up
at a hotel and shot up the country music festival.
- Right. - Yeah, right.
- Yeah, we never got the story.
And there were all these eyewitness accounts
of people saying that the FBI came in, took their phones,
and cleared their phones of any videos of the shooting.
I mean, there was 25 different facts about that.
We don't have time.
This isn't really the place to get into it.
But I'm convinced that that was a coverup.
And the thing about the way that the media works,
and that's what's scary to me with this Epstein thing
is that, I mean, there were two mass shootings
that happened earlier this week.
Nobody's talking about that anymore.
You know, there's kids in cages.
Nobody's talking about that anymore.
The media can take people's attention, like Plato,
and point it whatever direction they want,
and get it away from the thing that they actually want
to continue to get away with.
The PADDOC thing was scary because after a week,
nobody covered it anymore.
There was no investigative journalism.
- Yeah, people don't have the bandwidth,
and part of that is just the fact that--
- Five years ago, we would've known everything
about that guy.
- Right, well, even people live on the internet,
it really does turn all of our brains to mush a little bit.
Sometimes when you're like half asleep,
like scrolling through your phone,
you just realize like, oh wow,
like my comprehension skills aren't as good.
It's like there's unprecedented access to information,
but clearly we're all becoming a little bit brain damaged.
Yeah, and you think about things that happened in the past.
You know, think about like the Unabomber.
He killed, I think, three people, four people,
and he was a point of focus for like a decade.
I mean, to be fair, I guess that,
maybe that's a bad example
'cause he was at large for a decade,
but there were individual shootings and events
that took place that clearly would be talked about
for months and months, and it's, yeah, it's overload.
I don't know if that's,
that might just be the nature of the technology
that disseminates information,
but yeah, I know what you mean.
It's like, it's not hard to imagine the time
when the Epstein story will be supplanted by something else.
Yeah, unless things continue to get uncovered,
like, you know, there was a 12-man SWAT team
that raided his island yesterday.
Oh yeah, I saw some drone footage of that.
Did you see the drone footage?
Like some random dude just like sent a drone over there?
No, no, really?
Yeah, I don't know if there's any.
Well, anyway, thanks so much for coming in.
Hope you'll come back.
Thanks for having me.
And you got a favorite Oasis song?
I think it would be relevant to play
"Don't Look Back in Anger."
Oh yeah, great song.
♪ You slip inside the eye of your mind ♪
♪ Don't you know you might find ♪
♪ A better place to play ♪
♪ You said that you've never been ♪
♪ But all the things that you've seen ♪
♪ Slowly fade away ♪
♪ So I start a revolution from my pain ♪
♪ 'Cause you said the brains I had went to my head ♪
♪ Step outside, summertime's in bloom ♪
♪ I stand up beside the fireplace ♪
♪ Take that look from off your face ♪
♪ You ain't ever gonna burn my heart out ♪
♪ So Sally can wait ♪
♪ She knows it's too late as we're walking on by ♪
♪ Her soul slides away ♪
♪ But don't look back in anger ♪
♪ I heard you say ♪
You're listening to
(static)
Time Crisis on Beat One.
Well, kicking things off with some conspiracy politics talk.
Dark energy.
There definitely is some dark energy out there.
Now, I gotta admit something.
Jake, I know you're a big fan,
and I'm very sad to see the news
about the musician David Berman dying,
but I've never actually been that familiar with his music.
You know, I was like, I know,
you know, 'cause I follow music,
I'm like, oh yeah, he had Silver Jues and stuff,
but like, it's just music
I've never been that familiar with.
But so you were saying you've been listening a lot,
you're a big fan.
Oh yeah, I've been a fan for 25 years probably.
Whoa.
I think Starlight Walker was 94,
and I was a huge Pavement head,
so he came from that universe.
Yeah.
He was like a college buddy with the Pavement dudes.
Seen him live?
Saw him live once, not good.
Yeah?
He was a poet and a songwriter.
Was he--
Not a rock star.
Was he like the Robert Hunter
to Pavement's Grateful Dead?
That's an interesting analogy.
I mean, you could see a similarity
between the Pavement lyrical aesthetic
and the Silver Jues one.
They made music together too.
Yeah, Malcolms was on the,
well, he was on a few of the Silver Jues records.
You don't know any of it?
You know, when I was listening to some of the music,
you know, you hear the sad story,
and I was, and you know, it sounded familiar.
I see here that the last song
that the Silver Jues performed live
was Smith and Jones' Forever.
I played that one, and I was like,
oh yeah, this sounds familiar.
You know, it's one of those artists
that I just kind of always assumed,
oh yeah, like I'll go check that out one day.
The reputation is not really as a live band.
It's really like--
Well, I noticed that when I saw a commentary about it,
that yeah, there was a lot of special attention
paid to, yeah, him as a poet and a lyricist.
I mean, bring up the song before Smith and Jones' Forever.
It's called Random Rules, track one on American Water.
♪ In 1984 ♪
♪ I was hospitalized for approaching perfection ♪
♪ Slowly screwing my way across Europe ♪
♪ They had to make a correction ♪
♪ Broken and smoking where the infrared ♪
♪ Dear ones in the digital snake ♪
♪ I tell you they make it so you can't shake hands ♪
♪ When they make your hand shake ♪
♪ I know you like to line dance ♪
♪ Everything's so democratic and cool ♪
We played last Friday night, Richard Pictures played.
Oh, right, yeah, it was a gig.
Great gig, three hour gig.
At Old Town Pub?
Yeah.
♪ I know that a lot of what I say ♪
♪ Has been lifted off of men's room walls ♪
We were gonna maybe play this, but we decided against it.
We're gonna do some Silver Juice songs.
Oh, tight.
In the manner of the dead,
'cause we have another gig in Ohio in a few weeks.
Oh, sick.
♪ But nothing can change the fact ♪
It's a little surprising to me, actually,
that you didn't listen.
I think that he's sort of as close as what we had
to sort of a Leonard Cohen.
Yeah.
I mean, I spent a lot of time with Leonard Cohen.
And it's a very deadpan aesthetic,
the way Leonard Cohen was.
No, from everything I've read about him
and since his death and stuff,
he seems like a very talented, fascinating artist.
The truth is, this strain of indie rock
just was never exactly,
I wasn't the right age to engage with it.
Right.
I'm a music nerd, so I know all this stuff,
and I know Pavement, and I know Silver Juice,
and GBV and stuff.
It's just like, I don't know,
it just wasn't quite the right--
Yeah, I mean, I am, this is, I am the perfect age.
And the perfect dude.
(laughing)
To be a fan of this stuff.
My brother and I have been talking about this all week.
I remember listening to these records
25 years ago with my brother,
when he was probably like 13.
Yeah.
And I was like, oh man, I hadn't heard The Natural Bridge,
which was a great record from '96, I think.
I was like, I hadn't heard The Natural Bridge
in probably 10 years,
and I couldn't believe how many of the lyrics I remembered.
Right, 'cause you--
So many lyrics, and I'm not even a huge lyrics guy.
But when you listen to something enough, it--
And it's just like, indelible.
♪ There's no guidance when random rules ♪
♪ I asked a painter ♪
♪ Why the roads are colored black ♪
♪ He said, Steve, it's because people ♪
♪ Leave in no highway ♪
♪ And bring them back ♪
♪ So if you don't want me ♪
♪ I promise not to linger ♪
Oh, this lyric.
♪ But before I go, I've gotta ask you, dear ♪
♪ About that tan line on your ring finger ♪
That's one of the more quoted ones in all of it.
Yeah. A little bit, too.
There's a song, if you bring up The Natural Bridge,
what's the fourth song?
It's like the--
Ballad of Reverend War Character?
Yeah, wait, bring that up.
It's musically very low-key and minor.
But every line is like its own discreet short story.
♪ And Embry's last photograph ♪
♪ He disappears over a hill ♪
♪ Darryl Dodson waits in the grass ♪
♪ For a fight ♪
♪ The stars don't shine upon us ♪
♪ We're in the way of their light ♪
♪ No, the stars don't shine upon us ♪
♪ We're in the way of their light ♪
♪ A new girl in Tahoe ♪
♪ Has swallowed Sinatra's muck ♪
♪ Russian prima donna ♪
♪ Dances slow on Valium ♪
After the game.
♪ After the game ♪
♪ The bench warmer can't get a ride ♪
What era were you listening to this in a lot?
Like, delivering pizzas in Portland?
You playing a cassette of this?
No, before that.
College?
Yeah, like, when it came out, like '96.
Yeah, well, you were in college in '96.
Yeah, like freshman.
But I remember my brother and I would listen to this,
and like, it's so anti-social in terms of like the delivery
and like the vibe, and like the tones are all just like
kind of mid-low tones, like real muddy,
deliberately low energy and muddy.
And we were just like, what is this?
But it like stuck with us.
No, I could see it, yeah.
♪ Wilkie, dead cat, rottin' ♪
♪ Deep inside the hedge ♪
♪ A halyard roach ♪
♪ Dies on a greyhound coach in July ♪
♪ In a horror movie ♪
♪ When the car won't start you give it one last try ♪
♪ In a horror movie ♪
♪ When the car won't start you give it one last try ♪
♪ When a beer orders one more beer ♪
♪ In the smoky pickup bar ♪
♪ Burnout tramp by the exit ramp ♪
♪ Waits for one more car ♪
♪ One more car ♪
♪ The Latin teacher always smelled like piss ♪
♪ The census figures come out wrong ♪
♪ There's an extra in our midst ♪
♪ The census figures come out wrong ♪
♪ There's an extra in our midst ♪
- Well, rest in peace, David Berman.
Maybe you guys should throw together a playlist
- Can do.
- I'd like to listen to that.
So guys, we got a new song from Patrick Rowe.
How did you guys already hear this song?
- He DMed me or us.
- I think all of us.
- Maybe he's not throwing you on that thread.
He's just like, I want to keep my respectful distance
from the masthead of the brand, the flagship over here.
- Yeah, I don't think I got it.
It's called The Crisis Crew is Back.
- You're gonna like it.
- Oh, I like it.
- Oh, okay.
- Rocks play down, dog.
♪ Guess who just got back today ♪
♪ The team convened at the studio out in LA ♪
♪ Seinfeld, Nick, Jake, Colin, and Ezra K ♪
♪ Fresh episodes, man, we gonna get 'em ♪
♪ Making this ♪
♪ Sunday we'll all be listening to what they say ♪
♪ While enjoying some products made by Frito-Lay ♪
♪ Russian sour patch kids cereal all the way ♪
♪ 'Cause if the boys want a snack, you better let 'em ♪
- Nice.
♪ The Crisis Crew is back, the Crisis Crew is back ♪
- Pretty tough tone.
(laughing)
♪ The Crisis Crew is back ♪
♪ The Crisis Crew is back ♪
- Brutal.
(laughing)
- Excellent.
- Pretty tough tone.
- Rocks play down, dog.
Does Patrick make all the tracks himself?
- Yeah, he does it all.
- So he didn't just like find an instrumental karaoke
version of this one?
- Oh, oh, I thought you meant like,
is he writing, recording, producing?
- Is he tracking the drums live?
- I don't know.
(laughing)
- I mean, clearly he's musical.
I bet he plays guitar and you know.
- Why don't we have him call in?
- Yeah, yeah.
- It's a good call.
- Yeah, he's never called in.
- No, it's about time.
- It's time.
- All right.
Well, thanks for another great song, Patrick.
It's about time to get into the top five.
- It's time for the top five.
Five on iTunes.
- This week, we're comparing the top five hits of today
on the iTunes store, the shortest time to play
or the short-lived iTunes store
with the top five songs of 1999.
Why 1999?
- A few reasons.
- Yeah.
- This is episode 99.
- You're kidding.
- That we're recording right now.
- That was one of the questions from the TC Wiki
was you have anything special planned for episode 100?
- Well, we're coming up on it.
- Yeah, we gotta figure something out.
- And I graduated college in 99.
- Wow.
- And it's 20 years ago.
- 99 was kind of a big year for me.
- Oh, or maybe 98.
- You were still in high school?
- My freshman year was 98 to 99.
Yeah, 99 was like,
I do think those are like interesting stages.
When you first get to middle school,
when you first get to high school,
when you first get to college,
those kind of feel like moving up
into degrees of consciousness.
And then after college, it's all just kind of like a,
melts into one endless nightmare.
But I have actually very vivid memories of the summer of 98.
Spent a lot of time at my friend's house
and I think TRL was new.
So we were watching Total Request Live
and I felt like from ages 10 to 13,
I was kind of just like taking it all in,
figuring shit out and then I was like,
okay, 98, summer 98, next year I'm entering high school.
What's going on?
Britney Spears.
- Eminem.
- Eminem, fastball.
It really did kind of felt like me entering high school
also was just like this new era of pop culture too.
But maybe that's how you always feel.
It's like you turn 14 and you're just kind of like,
okay, like what's up with the world?
- Yeah, 'cause when you say that,
those are not big cultural moments, fastball and--
- No, okay, yeah, I was kidding about fastball.
- No, I know, but even Britney Spears.
- No, no, Britney Spears and Eminem looking back,
that was--
- Okay, sure.
- That changed the world.
Rap rock.
- Well, I wouldn't say that.
- And then rap rock.
So I remember like 98 to 2000,
I was very familiar with that time period
and I was like, this is weird.
- Were you into that stuff?
- No, because I was already like a little hipster.
- Right.
- So for instance-- - Thank God, dude.
- Well, I definitely wasn't on some like,
Britney Spears sucks.
- No, no, I'm talking, I'm not talking about Britney,
I'm talking about Limp Bizkit and Slipknot.
- I made the best of it.
Well, basically, I've always been kind of a straight shooter.
The period where I was the biggest hater was like sixth grade
because, you know, I was 12, I was still a child.
In the Jewish faith, you'd become a man at 13
when you're bar mitzvahed.
But when I was 12, I still was a child,
I hadn't put away childish things.
I still had this kind of like chip on my shoulder
about like, I'm into cool music
and I don't know what music you guys like, but it sucks.
So for instance, there's a punk band from New Jersey
called The Bouncing Souls.
Are you familiar with them, Jake?
- No.
- That's fair, that's a Jake not knowing something,
that's fair.
But Bouncing Souls are, I think they're still a band,
a great band.
They had like one or two albums
that I just like thought were great.
One of them is called Maniacal Laughter.
And so I just loved Bouncing Souls.
I love that they're from New Jersey.
I feel like they wore sambas a lot.
I don't know if they like played soccer,
but like wearing sambas, Adidas sambas
as part of their aesthetic.
And I was just like, the songs are great.
I love this band.
And I bought a t-shirt from some mail order catalog.
It was a Bouncing Souls t-shirt that on the back
said MTV in like the anti circle.
- Right, right, right.
- Like MTV crossed out.
- Like the Ghostbusters logo.
- Yeah, anti MTV.
So some part of me, you know, I was like 12.
So I was just kind of like, well, I like Bouncing Souls
and they're clearly anti MTV.
And I guess it makes sense
because they're an independent samba wearing
New Jersey punk band.
These are my people.
They speak for me and they don't like MTV.
And also as discussed on the program, I didn't have MTV.
So I didn't feel like super loyal to it.
- I thought you were gonna go the other way.
I thought you were gonna say, now hold on here.
A band is part music and part image.
- Right.
- And a band embracing having their image on TV
is not antithetical to the authenticity of their music.
- No, I wasn't there yet man.
- I'm out with the Bouncing Souls now.
- No, no, no.
- That's not how it went.
- I would never be out with the Bouncing Souls.
But like I said, I was 12.
So I just kind of like went along with it.
And I think it made me feel good to be like,
oh, kids in my school, they learn about music from MTV,
but they don't even know about Bouncing Souls.
And here I am wearing a t-shirt that shows my solidarity
with the Bouncing Souls and shows that I don't like MTV.
- You're legit.
- And you know, again, in my small town,
it didn't really like mean much.
So I do remember somebody I was friendly with
just being like, hey, what's up with that shirt?
What's wrong with MTV?
And I just remember kind of like thinking about it.
And I was like, and I felt like myself about to say
whatever like super-
- Talking point.
- Talking point to like, well, MTV,
they only play garbage and blah, blah, blah.
And I just remember, I kind of just like,
it was like almost the moment that I like shifted
into the person I am today.
And I was just kind of like, I don't know.
These guys don't like MTV.
You're right, there's some good stuff on MTV.
I didn't really have it in me.
- That's when Vampire Weekend started.
- And that's when Vampire Weekend started.
- Wow.
- Which is equal parts Bouncing Souls
and equal parts mid nineties MTV.
And I think the truth is, of course,
there's a lot of things wrong with MTV.
At the time you could be like,
they're ignoring things that deserve it and blah, blah, blah.
But when I really look back as an adult
and I'm thinking about the fact that they like,
well, this isn't about music,
but the fact that they put on like Beavis and Butthead
and Daria and like, you know,
showed the world Nirvana videos
and helped popularize rap to like kids
who probably only listen to rock and like,
and you know, they played a lot of good videos.
I'm kind of like, I can't be that mad at it.
Like there's way worse things, but you know.
- Yeah, looking back at nineties MTV is like a utopian,
like college station practically.
- Right, and it got a lot worse, but you know.
- No, no, no, that's terrible.
- And I still respect the Bouncing Souls
for feeling that way.
I just felt myself like about to say something
that I didn't really like know if I felt.
- Right.
- And I was like, yeah, I'm a poser because even though
I'm not, I wasn't a big enough poser to wear a shirt
from a band that I didn't listen to.
- Right.
- So I have so much self-respect for that,
but I was a poser in that I was about to just like,
and you know what, I'd like to think
that the Bouncing Souls would have been proud of me
for checking myself and not just regurgitating
their talking points 'cause they're open-minded
punk rock band.
So anyway, that's all to say that age 12, sixth grade,
that was my peak kind of contrarianism.
And then in seventh grade, I became kind of just like
full music nerd 'cause I remember I got some gift
certificates for my bar mitzvah.
It's easy to remember.
I guess it's easy to remember when you're Jewish,
like your 13th birthday is such a big deal
'cause you do have to learn all this stuff.
So I remember like I went to Tower Records in the city
with like a family friend and I got to buy all this,
and that's when I was like obsessed with like ska
and reggae, new stuff in from the 60s,
and like I started getting into garage rock
and I got this compilation called "Back From The Crypt
Volume 2," very influential in my life.
So anyway, that's when I just became like a music nerd
and then next summer, you know, now I'm 14
and seeing Britney Spears, and by that point,
I was just like listening to too much music
to have like strong feelings about anything.
So I was kind of like Britney Spears, okay.
Definitely didn't make me angry.
I was kind of like, this is weird.
- Kind of catchy.
- Kind of catchy.
And then when all the new metal stuff hit,
I was kind of like, huh, Limp Bizkit, like this is weird,
but I kind of like the song that DJ,
I like the hip hop side of it.
Like there's a song DJ Premier produced,
and I always liked "System of a Down."
So that's what I mean, like I made the best of it.
I was like, you know, when that stuff was playing everywhere
I'd be like, okay, I'm not fully down with Limp Bizkit
and I don't think they're a great band,
but this is my favorite of their songs.
And I do think the best band of this genre
is "System of a Down."
I just didn't have like this kind of like,
oh, this (beep) sucks.
- You know, I was older, I was like, this (beep) sucks.
And I was right.
- Except for "System."
- Yeah, "System," I was like, okay, well,
this is like mathy and like kind of proggy.
- And also I always loved "Rage Against the Machine" too.
- Oh, hell yeah.
- But so when that music hit.
- But "Rage" is like 93 or four.
- No, no, of course, they were the godfathers.
But when that music hit, I saw how these were people
who liked "Rage" and I couldn't fully hate on it.
- That first "Rage" record, dude.
- And the second one.
Actually, "Rage" never made a bad album.
- "Audioslave."
- I'm in, dude.
- I'm not even mad at "Audioslave."
- I'm in on "Audioslave."
♪ Like a stone ♪
- That's a good song.
- Yeah, great song.
- "Like a Stone" is a good song.
All right, let's get in this top five.
- It's time for the top five on iTunes.
- So this week in '99, number five song,
"Smash Mouth All Star."
♪ Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me ♪
♪ I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed ♪
♪ She was looking kind of dumb with her finger in her ♪
- Kind of good production.
♪ Shape of an L on her forehead ♪
♪ Well, the years start coming and they don't stop coming ♪
- Oh, double track vocal comes in there.
♪ And I hit the ground running ♪
♪ Didn't make sense not to live for fun ♪
♪ Your brain gets hard ♪
- This song is so popular with kids now.
- Still.
- Oh yeah.
- Why?
- It's still used in movies.
- Was it on like "Shrek" or something?
- Yeah.
♪ Hey now, you're an all star ♪
♪ Get your game on, go play ♪
♪ Hey now, you're a rock star ♪
- Wait, am I misremembering this?
Did they play the Trump inauguration?
- No, they're very anti-Trump.
- Right, right, right.
But that was like an internet joke or something
that people believed.
See, I don't even remember it.
It's like all...
- No, they recently just like went hard on Trump on Twitter.
- Oh no, no, someone was covering this song, I think.
- Oh.
- Was that what it was?
Oh, it was "Three Doors Down" covered "Smash Mouth."
That is so deep.
- Oh, I bet.
- "Three Doors" covered "Smash Mouth."
- "Smash Mouth," there's no way "Smash Mouth"
(beep)
"Three Doors."
- "Three Doors," that band's brutal.
(sniffing)
- I prefer "Smash Mouth."
- Very diplomatic of you.
- No, "Smash Mouth" is cool.
- Where are they from?
What's their band?
- Definitely SoCal, right?
San Jose.
- Oh, it's North Dakota.
- Oh wow, weird.
How do you get a band going out of San Jose?
Like there's no like...
Are you playing in San Francisco and Oakland a lot?
- That's a major metropolitan area, man.
- Yeah, but it's like, it has very little cultural impact.
- Whoa, I feel like we just got
another Connecticut situation on our hands.
Jake just going in on a beloved place.
- I'm not going in on it, and I don't think it's beloved.
I think it's--
- Tell that to the Sharks fan.
- I think it's adjacent to Silicon Valley
and like 45 miles from San Francisco.
- It's really not close to San Fran.
- It's probably 45 miles.
- Yeah, with traffic, it's like an hour and a half.
- Yeah, okay.
Talk a little Bay Area.
You got that 101 corridor through Redwood City.
- Yeah, you spend much time in San Jose
when you used to live up there?
- No, I mean--
- You mean you've never been to the Winchester Mystery House?
- No, I never have.
- Well, I have.
- Have you?
- And it's very spooky.
- I'm not ripping in San Jose.
I'm saying for a city of that size
in that part of the world--
- This guy's ripping on San Jose.
- Northern California, it's a bit of a ghost, man.
I'm just wondering how Smash Mouth
got their career going out of San Jose.
I'm just intrigued by those mechanics.
- I think it's the same as in any major metropolitan area.
They're not from a one stoplight town in West Texas.
San Jose, you're talking about a thriving metropolitan area.
I'm sure there are many clubs, organizations,
places for them to play.
- Organizations.
- And yeah, I bet they probably ripped up to the Bay.
Well, I guess they are the Bay.
- North Bay.
- They ripped up to San Fran.
Do you think Smash Mouth ever played at,
what's the punk club in--
- Oh, Gilman?
- Gilman.
- Are you from Berkeley?
That's actually a good question.
- Early Smash Mouth gigs.
- I bet they did.
- You also gotta assume bands like Smash Mouth,
when they came out, 'cause their first set was,
you might as well be walking on the sun.
They were like a little more Hawaiian shirts, rockabilly.
- Yeah, they seem very SoCal.
Very Orange County.
- But guys like that always have roots in punk rock.
You don't turn into a Hawaiian shirt guy
unless you start with punk rock.
- It's so true, dude.
I went through that transition from sixth to seventh grade.
Exotica, you know, you're familiar
with what people call Exotica?
- No.
- Around the time that there was this kind of surf,
and I always loved surf music.
I always buy obscure '60s surf records.
Around the time there was kind of a surf
and garage revival in the '90s,
there was also a renewed interest in music
made by people like Esquivel and Martin Denny.
It was related to big band music and sometimes Latin music.
- Yeah, it was kind of like Hawaiian shirt,
hi-fi music, like a record to put on
while you made like Mai Tais
in your suburban basement bar.
You can picture what that stuff sounds like.
- Life's good, man.
- Like Oregon music.
- Oh yeah.
- Kind of slightly creepy, vibey,
Hawaiian shirt Mai Tai music.
And so anyway, in a lot of these magazines
and catalogs that would cover it,
it would always be,
featuring the best surf, garage, and Exotica.
I'm sure the Smash Mouth guys know what I'm talking about.
So did Smash Mouth--
- Ever play Gilman Street?
- Ever play Gilman?
And what's it called, 624 Gilman?
- I thought it was just called Gilman Street.
- 924 Gilman?
They ever cross paths?
Well, I guess at that point,
Green Day was already really big.
Play a show with Rancid or something?
- If they did, the internet doesn't remember it.
- Maybe it was such a thriving scene in San Jose.
And by the way, Seinfeld, this is a true number crunch.
- Oh yeah.
- So Jake's talking about San Jose,
like it's some podunk town.
Where does San Jose fall
in terms of the size of American cities?
Is it top 10?
- I bet it's right.
- Oh, I don't think so.
- I bet it's right at number 10.
10 or 11 or nine or--
- You think you know American cities that well, Seinfeld?
- Yeah, I mean, I would vouch that it's not in the top 10.
- I bet it's the second biggest city in California.
- Oh my God, it's number 10.
- It's number 10?
- Called it, dude.
- It's the 10th biggest city in America?
Well, 'cause it's definitely bigger
than San Francisco's the smallest city.
- Wow. - Yeah, San Francisco's 700,000.
- It's just over a million people.
Second to Dallas, Texas.
- Oh, Dallas, you shine with an evil light.
- You mean Dallas is number nine?
- Dallas is number nine.
- Well, anyway, I want to get some of the Smash Mouth guys on.
You know who knows them from back in the days?
Ariel, 'cause Ariel's '90s band,
the Hippos, like toured with them or something.
- Oh, wow.
- Anyway, I always like Smash Mouth.
- Where are we?
- It's number five.
- Okay. - We gotta pick up the pace.
- Yep.
- Number five of 99, number five today.
Hot Girl Summer featuring Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla $ign.
This is Megan Thee Stallion.
(hip hop music)
- This song is called Hot Girl Summer?
- Yeah.
- I've seen this reference on Twitter.
- Yeah, yeah, right, it's a big reference now.
It's like, I think Megan Thee Stallion popularized
the phrase and then made the song,
'cause after all, it's famous.
- That's correct, yeah.
- What is the artist's name?
- Megan Thee Stallion.
- Megan Thee Stallion?
- Well, it's T-H-E-E.
- Yeah, Megan.
- Thee.
- Like M-E-G-A-N.
- Yep, Thee.
- Stallion.
- Oh, Thee.
♪ Thinking he's a player, he's a member on the team ♪
♪ He put in all that work, he wanna be the MVP ♪
♪ I told him ain't no taming me ♪
♪ I love my niggas equally ♪
♪ Nigga, nine to five niggas with that superstar beat ♪
- She would talk a lot about Hot Girl (beep)
and then it became Hot Girl Summer
and then it became a thing that a lot of people
would use as like a hashtag almost.
- And she's applied to trademark.
- Right, I've seen that on Twitter.
- Well, I'm glad this song's doing well.
- I like the idea of a summer having a theme, though.
- Right. - That's fun.
- Like, wait, Seinfeld, you must have done
a Summer of George Hot Girl Summer event.
- I did do a Hot Girl Summer of George tweet.
- Okay, there you go.
Well, yeah, didn't you have a Grateful Dead summer?
- Yeah, me and my buddy Steve,
when we were roommates back in like 2000 in Portland,
we had a Grateful Dead summer,
we had a Led Zeppelin summer,
and then we had a cooler in the car summer.
- What does that mean?
- Like if you show up to a buddy's house,
there's a cooler of brew in the car.
- At all times?
- Yes.
- And how does one have--
- So you would always keep it in there?
- Yeah, it was always a cooler of brew.
- So you're always just filling it with ice?
- Yeah, and brewing.
- Get a lot of melted water situations?
- Yes.
- Just you doing this, or this is a good community thing?
- Eh, small community.
- Hot Girl Summer, in my day,
it was cooler of brew in the car summer.
What happened? - Cooler summer.
What's a good, like, TC summer theme?
I don't want it to be some gross food.
- I don't know, maybe just getting older.
My mind just goes to health-related things.
Vegan summer.
- Right, right, yeah.
- It's also the election year, right?
- Summer of pushups.
- Let's abstain from things.
- Summer of Bernie.
- And put ourselves through--
- No Fap Summer.
- Physical exertion.
What is it?
- No Fap Summer?
- No Fap?
- Oh God, this is a crazy episode.
Jake, you're not familiar with the No Fap Movement?
- No, what's that?
Wait, F-A-P?
- Yeah.
- God, I feel like a grandpa.
I'm just like, what is, who is this?
- Fap is internet slang for masturbation.
- Whoa, wait.
- I think it's onomatopoeia.
- What's the derivation?
Wait, tell me.
- Onomatopoeia.
- Oh, okay, gotcha.
- So anyway, there's been a movement for a long time
where people claim that there's health benefits,
mental clarity, things like that, to abstaining from--
- Not mental clarity, maybe mentally clouding.
- There's an argument to the opposite effect
that it focuses you up and makes you more attractive
to the opposite sex.
- I don't think it focuses you up.
- All right, Jake, you're gonna get Jake.
- I think it deludes you.
I think it makes you insane.
- Right, but Jake, you don't know
what you're walking into here.
These are passionate community of people
who've spent years doing their own research on this,
and they feel very strongly about this,
so you're walking into a minefield right now.
- So how long would they go?
- Some people have gone years.
- Are they having sex, or is it just no--
- I think you can have sex,
but some people abstain from sex, too.
- I think the goal's forever.
- Well, it's also like, fine, be my guest, don't (beep)
- Great, good for you.
- So you're fine with it.
- Well, they don't need your--
- Well, but I just don't understand--
- Jake, I don't think they need
your kind of condescending praise.
These guys are at such a high level mentally that--
- Yeah, but I don't need them dictating to me
how to achieve mental clarity.
It's like, you do you.
Like, you don't have to attach all these other--
- I don't know if they're fascists about it.
I don't know if they wanna impose it.
They probably feel bad for you.
- And you.
- I'm a member of the community, Jake.
I look, mask off, you know what?
How do you think I achieved this level of mental clarity?
- You are very lucid today on the program.
- Yeah, I wanna make this show better.
New rules, summer, fall, winter, spring.
- No pizza, no brew.
- Where does all this stuff take place, Seinfeld?
It's all on Reddit?
- Reddit, I was reading about NoFap
about a week ago, actually.
- Were you?
- I was, yeah, 'cause I was looking for clarity.
And it originated on Reddit,
and then it actually became so popular, the subreddit,
that I believe it branched out into its own thing.
- Oh, it's like its own Reddit
with subreddits within the NoFap community?
- I think it broke out.
- Okay. - Yeah.
- Well, Jake, give it a try for the next two weeks
and report back for the next TC.
Jake comes in here and in two weeks,
just like walking on air, super mental clarity,
just like, you know, guys, I used to do a cooler summer
and I bruised my friends.
Man, I didn't know what I was missing.
This is what it's all about, fellas.
The number four song in 99,
"Bills, Bills, Bills" by Destiny's Child.
- Classic.
- I remember seeing this on MTV and being like 14.
I think I've told this story that I've never felt like,
oh, I know what's gonna happen for,
which artists are gonna have, you know,
like who's gonna flop and who's-
- You're not a producer.
- Yeah, not really.
- You're not a record industry man.
- Yeah, I have like impulses,
but I tend to just think of it as like,
how does that affect what I'm doing, my own art?
I have impulses about what I'm doing.
But every once in a while,
I do think I make the right call.
And I do remember the first time I saw
Destiny's Child on TV.
And I remember the album before this,
but specifically it was this song, "Bills, Bills, Bills."
I just remember seeing one of the singers in this band.
I just remember being like, she's incredible.
- She's got something.
- I mean, I was 14, so I was just kind of like, who knows?
- You were not doing no fap summer.
- Oh God.
I just knew that there's something special.
And that was like a little payoff when her solo career.
God.
All right, moving on.
Number four this year,
Senorita, Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello.
- This was on last week.
- Yeah.
- ♪ It's another tequila sunrise ♪
- And the Sapphire Moonlight.
- You know they're together.
- No, I didn't know that.
- Shawn and Camila, they're-
- Oh, that's great.
I saw some pictures of them together on Instagram.
They were horsing around.
I couldn't tell if it was platonic or not.
They're just kind of horsing around on the street,
taking a walk with smiles on their faces.
Well, I'm glad to hear it.
♪ Oh la la la ♪
♪ It's true, la la la ♪
♪ Oh, I should be running ♪
♪ Oh, you keep me coming for you ♪
♪ Light in Miami ♪
♪ The air was hot from summer rain ♪
♪ Sweat dripping off me ♪
♪ Before I even knew her name ♪
♪ La la la ♪
♪ You felt like ooh la la la ♪
♪ Yeah, no ♪
♪ Sapphire moonlight ♪
♪ We danced for hours in the same tequila sunrise ♪
♪ Her body felt right in my hands ♪
♪ La la la ♪
♪ You felt like ooh la la la ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ I love it when you call me senorita ♪
♪ I wish I could pretend I didn't need you ♪
I like that they sing this part together.
'Cause they're both saying,
I like that you call me senorita.
They're not worried about the logic.
No, or they're not worried about
outmoded definitions of gender.
♪ It's so damn hard to leave you ♪
Solid song.
Number 399.
Wow.
I guess a lot of times in the summer,
people put out summer songs.
Everybody's talking about the summer.
Gotta speak to the moment.
So this summer we have "Hot Girl Summer."
Back in '99, this was a song I remember being bemused by.
It's called "Summer Girls" by LFO.
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ I like it when the girls stop by ♪
I don't know if I know this one.
Chinese food makes me sick.
Problematic.
LFO?
What is this band?
What's their story?
Is it a band?
It's kind of like--
Oh yeah, I vaguely remember this.
They were kind of a boy band.
♪ Chinese food makes me sick ♪
♪ And I think it's fly when girls stop by ♪
♪ For the summer, for the summer ♪
♪ I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch ♪
Tragically, two of the three guys died young.
They got sick.
It's sad.
They got sick?
Yeah, I remember hearing--
Like cancer?
Yeah, last summer one dude died from cancer.
Damn.
You know what's interesting too,
looking back on this song,
this is a song about nostalgia.
Right.
If we're looking back 20 years ago to '99,
they're talking about new kids on the blocks.
They're probably talking about '89.
Yeah.
♪ Something in your eyes went and drove me crazy ♪
♪ Now I can't forget you and it makes me mad ♪
♪ Left one day and never came back ♪
♪ Stayed all summer then went back home ♪
♪ McCarley, Culkin, Busset, Hall ♪
Honestly, the production sounds good to me right now.
Home Alone was 1990.
Okay.
Runs me of like, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.
Yeah.
That kind of energy.
♪ On the block, had a bunch of exes ♪
♪ Chinese food makes me sick ♪
♪ And I think it's fly away ♪
♪ And girls stop by for the summer ♪
♪ For the summer ♪
This is one of the rock music that's probably
scratching.
Right.
Yeah, they're scratching on All Star too.
This is kind of like a haunting sad song.
♪ Cherry pants, cold crotch, rock stud boogie ♪
♪ Used to hate school so I had to play hooky ♪
♪ Always been hip to the B-Boy style ♪
Is this like a,
sort of like a commercialized Sublime kind of sound?
It's not a million miles away from the Sublime,
like what I got, acoustic guitar.
But there's so much acoustic guitar meets hip hop
in the 90s.
♪ Hip hop and rock and roll ♪
There you go.
(laughing)
This is back when people liked hip hop and rock and roll.
(laughing)
♪ You know fun dip and cherry coke ♪
♪ I like the way you laugh when I tell a joke ♪
♪ When I met you I said my name is Rich ♪
♪ You look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch ♪
♪ New kids on the block ♪
They're really leaning into that Abercrombie and Fitch.
The funny thing is that,
it was a real like kind of Borgesian playfulness
with time because they're reminiscing about 1990.
Yeah.
But Abercrombie and Fitch wasn't popular then.
Abercrombie and Fitch was popular when the song was made.
So he's kind of collapsing the present and the past
into some kind of eternal haunted,
I don't know.
(laughing)
I gotta say of all the songs we listened to so far,
this one's like hitting me the most.
It's very warm.
Yeah.
It's actually pretty.
♪ And I bug 'cause I miss it ♪
♪ Like the color purple macaroni and cheese ♪
I'm hearing that we actually once got an email
asking us to break down these lyrics.
I don't know man,
that one just kind of made me emotional.
You know that's also what's funny too is like,
you know when you're 14,
whatever taste of music you have.
Me and my friends probably would have made fun
of this a little bit.
'Cause the Chinese food lyric is just insane.
Chinese food made me sick.
(laughing)
Just all Chinese food?
I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt
that he's trying to make this impressionistic portrait
of one summer and rather than him being that much
of a psycho piece of (beep)
that he's just like,
the cuisine of that one billion Chinese people
is absolutely disgusting.
I'm willing to believe that he's impressionistically
referencing like a time that summer
when he got sick from eating too much Chinese food.
- The one spot at the strip mall, Chinese.
- But hey, if that explanation is not enough
for you know, a Chinese restaurateur
who probably heard this song and made their skin crawl,
I'm not gonna fight them on that.
But that aside,
New Kids on the Block had a bunch of hits.
Painting a picture, Chinese food makes me sick.
Crazy non sequitur.
But that's also him letting you know
that this is like, you know it's Proustian.
Another adjective based on an author's name
that who I've read about 30 pages of.
I've always been meaning to go deeper on Proust.
You ever read Proust, Jake?
- No, I'm heavy on Nosgard.
- Oh yeah.
- Who's compared to Proust.
- Yeah.
- But Nosgard's contemporary so I gravitate to him.
- Yeah, one summer off.
We should do Summer of Proust.
- Oh dude.
- Proustian summer.
- TC's Proustian summer.
- Marcel Proust.
(laughing)
Marcel Proust makes me sick.
'Cause Dave Makovich from Chromia,
you know he studied French literature
so he's always talking about Proust.
- I did not know that.
- I think the writers of the song,
they understand that you can't sum up the past
in a tidy way so immediately they're letting us know
that this is an impressionistic song.
New Kids on the Block had a bunch of hits.
So you're like okay, is this gonna be like
a CNN look back at 1990?
New Kids on the Block had a bunch of hits.
George H.W. Bush was in the White House
and the stock market was recovering from the,
what, you know?
- Yeah.
- They're like, is that what they're setting us up for?
Then Crazy Left Turn, Chinese Food Makes Me Sick.
They're mixing this kind of grand cultural thing
while it's playing on the radio
with this very specific problematic
remembrance of a time Chinese food made him sick.
And then he twists it yet again.
And I think it's Fly When Girls Stop By
for the summer, for the summer.
- Stop by?
- Maybe he's like a townie.
- Oh yeah, it's like a summer relationship.
It's like a summer fling.
- He's a townie in a lake town.
- The rich girls from the suburbs coming up.
- Yeah.
- There's the small town Chinese restaurant.
- Yeah, he's a lake townie.
The rich suburban girls come.
- He's working the landscaping gig in the summer.
- Yeah, oh and maybe when he says
the Chinese food makes him sick,
again, he wouldn't dream of impugning the quality
of one of the world's great cuisine cultures.
He's just saying, you know what?
I'm not a member of the country club.
I can't go, you know, eat club sandwiches
at the country club.
So I had to use my meager paycheck
to go to the worst Chinese restaurant in town
and it made me sick.
- That's before the Panda opened.
- Yeah, we didn't have Panda Express.
I know in your rich suburb,
you probably go eat Panda Express at the mall.
Here, in a lake town, it's not like that.
We have one really bad Chinese restaurant.
I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch.
Again, rich suburban mall girls.
They eat Panda Express.
It's not gonna make you sick.
It's gonna make you feel good.
And they wear Abercrombie and Fitch.
- It makes you feel great.
- I'd take her if I had one wish,
but she's been gone since that summer.
You know, it tracks.
It really tracks.
He's a working class lake townie.
Seinfeld, search in quotes, lake townie.
Is that a thing?
- It's gotta be.
- There's all different types of townies,
but a lake townie?
- Yeah.
- Summer girls.
- So I found the phrase lake townie
in the Hartford Courant
in a review of the film Beethoven from 1993,
referring to a motorcycling lake townie named Seth.
(laughing)
Played by a young Danny Masterson.
- Oh wow.
- And then there's also the show Riverdale.
- More contemporary.
- Yeah, and Riverdale is set in Shadow Lake,
and so they refer to this character Cassidy as a townie,
so Shadow Lake Townie Cassidy.
- She's a lake townie.
- Whoa.
- Hip hop mama, spick and span,
met you one summer and it all began.
You're the best girl that I ever did see.
The great Larry Bird, Jersey 33.
When you take a sip, you buzz like a hornet.
Billy Shakespeare wrote a whole bunch of sonnets.
Love that.
(laughing)
Call me when you miss me 'cause I can't speak, baby.
Something in your eyes really drove me crazy.
(hip hop music)
- Let's listen to the rest of the song.
This song's just hitting 'em.
What do you think of these little tasty guitar moments, Jake?
- Pretty in.
- Dig it.
We're down and out.
♪ Summer so-so, summertime feels got it going on ♪
♪ Shake and wiggle to a hip hop song ♪
- Ezra, you should cover this.
- Well, I don't like, I'll admit,
I don't love the rap verses.
Oh, classic, I steal your honey like I steal your butt.
♪ When it sinks, me and sick ♪
♪ And I think it's fly when girls stop by for the summer ♪
♪ For the summer ♪
♪ I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch ♪
- I like the sustained synth strings that glow in the mix.
- Woo!
Yeah, it's pretty.
(hip hop music)
- Kind of abrupt ending, summer's over.
- That's how it ends, dude.
- Beautiful song, man, I'm glad to hear that one.
The number three song this summer,
Truth Hurts by Lizzo.
(hip hop music)
Oh yeah, we heard this last time.
(hip hop music)
♪ Why men great 'til they gotta be great ♪
♪ Woo ♪
♪ I just took a DNA test, turns out I'm a hundred percent ♪
- On our fact sheet, we got a quote from Lizzo that says,
"I was in marching band from eighth grade
"all the way up until college,
"the cougar marching band at University of Houston.
"I was a piccolo player.
"I was the baddest piccolo in the land
"'cause I got big lungs and I was really determined."
I was in marching band too in high school.
- I think Lizzo was on fresh air.
- I mean, she's huge right now.
- With Terry Gross. - All over the place.
- Did you come across Lizzo
when you played at Mo-Pop Festival?
- Lizzo played right before us at Mo-Pop,
and yeah, we were kind of like standing around
on the lake, actually.
The backstage was like this kind of nice grass area
right on the lake.
You could see Canada very clearly.
I wanna get back to '99.
That Summer Girls just got me in a nostalgic mood.
The number two song, Enrique Iglesias.
♪ Bailamos ♪
Do you know this song, Jake?
♪ Let the rhythm take you ♪
- Okay, nice. - ♪ Bailamos ♪
- Whoa.
♪ Te quiero, mamacita, bailamos ♪
This was part of the big guy.
Latin pop explosion of the late '90s.
(guitar music)
- Ooh. - Loving that nylon string.
(funky music)
- Ooh.
♪ Esta noche bailamos ♪
♪ Te doy toda mi vida ♪
♪ Oh yeah ♪
- Drew Walsh came in, kind of, this was leads.
- Yeah.
♪ Tonight we dance ♪
♪ I'll leave my life in your hands ♪
- Kind of gives me like an Ace of Bass vibe.
- Oh yeah, totally.
- That rhythm.
Was this the same year as Smooth?
- Yeah, '99 we had Ricky Martin, Livin' La Vida Loca,
this song, and Santana featuring Rob Thomas, Smooth.
- Ooh.
♪ And go by ♪
♪ The Incans' fireworks tonight ♪
♪ Bailamos ♪
♪ Let the rhythm take you over ♪
♪ Bailamos ♪
♪ Te quiero, amor mío ♪
♪ Bailamos ♪
♪ Wanna live this night forever ♪
♪ Bailamos ♪
♪ Te quiero, amor mío ♪
- This one's also kind of melancholy.
- Yeah.
It's like they knew the 20th century was ending and--
- The pre-millennium tension.
- We were gonna enter some dark days.
- Great song.
♪ Last night I dreamt of San Pedro ♪
- Who was that, Abba?
- No, it's Madonna.
- Oh.
♪ La isla bonita ♪
- Yeah, it's very similar.
- The number two song on iTunes right now.
- Yeah.
- Another kind of melancholic song.
- Oh, but two.
- Yeah, number two.
We don't know number one.
- Probably the other dumb version of this song
is gonna be number one.
I'm sick of it.
- But the backlash has started.
- It's run is over.
♪ Yeah, I'm gonna take my horse ♪
♪ To the old town road ♪
- Jesus.
♪ Ride till I can't no more ♪
- Have you heard the Mason Ramsey verse
on the remix of this?
- Once.
- It's pretty good.
- Who's Mason Ramsey?
Walmart Yodel Boy?
- Yeah, don't worry about it.
- Of course, gonna move on.
- All right.
- We've covered it.
- Now, the number one song in 1999,
this is a song I actually, I always really liked, actually.
Again, I don't know if it's because I was 14,
well, I guess I was 15, actually, summer '99.
So it's 15, summer '99.
And so all these songs just really hit me
with this nostalgia, maybe because it was like,
yeah, I just finished my freshman year
and it's like going into sophomore year,
like this (beep) heating up, man.
- This is a funny era for Days Between,
because I was 22.
- You're done with college.
- Just like 22-year-old Jake hanging out
with a 15-year-old Ezra.
- We probably still, we probably would have plenty--
- I bet we would.
- Yeah, wouldn't it happen?
- It'd probably be a pretty cool hang.
- This is where the Days Between,
in terms of how you feel about music changes,
between 12, I wouldn't even go all the way up to 18,
I'd say between 12 and 15.
Once you're 16, it's like, I don't know, things change.
But between 12 and 15, it's just like,
it's a funny period. - You know what was huge?
I can't say if it was number one or not,
but huge when I was 14.
- What?
- Smells Like Teen Spirit.
- Ah.
- Straight up.
- Yeah, see, I never got to hear that song new, really.
I'm just so perfectly of that age.
- Yeah, there was no cool rock music
when I was coming of age.
And then the Strokes came out and the White Stripes
when I was 17.
And so I liked it. - That's pretty good.
- No, no, it was good, but I was already,
I don't know how to put it, between 11--
- I was over it, man.
- I was a little bit over it.
And no, and I love those bands.
- Sure.
- I just already was kind of,
I didn't have the wide-eyed love of music anymore.
I was just on some other (beep).
- The Strokes were like, yeah, yeah,
I've heard Lou Reed on television.
Yeah, it's great.
I like what you guys are doing.
- No, I was like, these guys are great.
I love them.
I wanna study their songs and see what they're doing.
But I think I already was like,
it already fired me up to start my own band.
I wasn't a wide-eyed kid just taking music in
and thinking about my crushes and like,
wow, what's high school gonna be like?
It's just such a different time.
And then you're like--
- You were already attached.
- I was 17 and I was kind of like,
all right, the Strokes, okay.
Excellent song.
I was almost on some early professionalism (beep)
where I was like, well done, fellas.
Okay, interesting.
- Noted.
- Noted, yeah.
The competition has come strong.
- The gauntlet has been thrown.
- And it wasn't even that strong.
And actually I remember me and Wes's band,
our high school band,
we would mess around and play someday.
And I just remember learning how to play those chords
and I was like, oh, this is cool.
I like what they did.
It was kind of the first time when a band came out
and yeah, and I was just like very familiar
with the references already.
'Cause that was also extremely my (beep)
was like television and Velvet Underground.
- Yeah.
- So I totally loved it.
Yeah, I don't know how to explain it though.
It's just like--
- No, I get it.
- I think when you're a little kid,
obviously everything's just washing over you.
- Yeah.
- But then there's something about like that tweenage,
early teen years that's just very unique.
Yeah, by the way--
- I think you're just like learning the archetypes
at that age.
- Yeah.
- And then you start to understand like,
oh, people are influenced by things.
They build off the other things.
- Yeah.
- It's not as like,
and with each successive generation of music,
you learn about--
- It's a little less magical.
- Exactly.
- Or something.
And again, it doesn't mean you don't respect it
or you don't like it 'cause I love the strokes.
- You're like, I see the structure.
I get it.
- Yeah, it was just different.
- Yeah.
- But this music just reminds me of like passively like,
yeah, being those ages and just kind of being like,
I would actually say the summer after my freshman year,
I would say was like my last summer of childhood.
- Damn, dude.
- I just remember that summer still kind of like,
I don't know, going on like trampolines.
And obviously things were changing, you know,
people were having like boyfriends and girlfriends
and there were definitely some like,
you know, it's not the same as being 11.
But I just do remember after that summer,
for whatever reason, my sophomore year just like sucked.
I didn't like it that much.
The first time I ever got like super high
and drunk was my sophomore year.
- Oh, wow.
- I got a little drunk in freshman year
and maybe in eighth grade,
but just the first time I got like super stoned,
like, whoa, what the (beep)
and it was crazy was my sophomore year.
So there's something about this music reminds me
of like truly the final era before I turn
into the jaded person that I am today.
♪ By the moose ♪
♪ Let the rhythm take you over ♪
♪ By the moose ♪
I do remember kind of being like,
I know this song so well 'cause it was so popular.
- I'm curious what it's gonna be.
- The beginning of it, I truly find haunting too.
- Am I gonna know it?
- I think so.
- I mean, if I know the Ricky Martin.
- I don't really like the chorus,
but the intro and the verse,
I just remember the first time hearing it be like, whoa.
- Aguilera?
- Yes.
- How did I know that?
"Genie in a Bottle"?
- Like this is so weird.
- Yeah, this is, wow.
- This being like a huge song when you're 14.
It's actually early.
- It's before kid A.
- Radiohead wasn't up on this yet.
But yeah, even just like.
- Wait, start it again.
- The piano is pretty like Swedish.
- Yeah, but then it.
- And then just kind of detuned.
(imitates piano)
So minimal.
I always found this haunting.
I was just like.
- If this song came out today,
do you think it would still hit?
- Yes, absolutely.
Strong writing.
♪ Waiting for someone to release me ♪
♪ You look in your lips ♪
♪ I'm blowing kisses my way ♪
♪ But that don't mean ♪
♪ I'm gonna give it away ♪
♪ Baby, baby, baby ♪
♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪
- It's like the pre-chorus,
starting to lose me.
- Yeah.
♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪
♪ Hard to see it now ♪
♪ If you wanna be with me ♪
♪ Baby, there's a price to pay ♪
- Yeah, corny chorus,
but that verse is like very minor.
- The verse is almost like weird,
like Don Henley's song or something.
- Yeah.
Boyz II Summer vibes.
- Totally.
- The drum programming is crazy.
(imitates drumming)
♪ Gotta like what you do ♪
♪ I'm a genie in a bottle, baby ♪
- This part.
♪ Gotta love me the right way, honey ♪
♪ I'm a genie in a bottle, baby ♪
- God, this is a deep memory.
Okay, this song reminds me of Summer '99.
- Yeah.
- I had a weird temp job for about a month,
where I was representing Sprint PCS.
(laughing)
This is so pathetic.
At kiosks inside circuit cities in Kmart's.
And so I remember just like-
- Polo shirt tucked into khakis look.
- Yep.
"Sir, can I interest you?
Can I talk to you?"
Like a brochure about Sprint PCS.
- How old were you?
- 22, man.
It was like, you know,
literally like a month after graduating college.
Just like, what am I doing?
Like, I'm just like, I need to make a little money,
pay some rent.
And so I remember being in the circuit city,
standing by the kiosk, not really trying.
Although you would get $5 sales commission
if you sold a phone.
I would maybe sell like two or three a day.
- Okay.
- Four or five hour shift, shorter shift.
Maybe you're getting paid like 10 an hour.
But this song I remember playing a lot.
And then I remember hearing it for like the third time
that day, standing there just like,
"Man, can I talk?
Can I interest you in Sprint?"
And then there was like a giant,
the circuit city would sell tons of CDs back then.
So I remember actually going over
to like a CD listening station
and literally throwing on,
there was a headphone setup with Eagles greatest hits.
- Oh, okay.
- And I was like,
I'm just gonna tap out on this
like insane corporate retail environment for a little bit.
And it's like, listen to some Eagles.
- Yeah.
- So I'm listening to "Take It to the Limit"
and I get tap on the shoulder
from the circuit city store manager.
He's just like, "What are you doing?
You're not manning the Sprint kiosk."
He's like, "I called your representative
at the temp agency.
I get a call."
This was my first cell phone, by the way, too.
So it's like, I get a call from like the temp agency liaison
to Sprint, got canned.
- Whoa. - Oh no.
- Jake, say it ain't so man.
Did you really get caught in uniform
at the CD listening station?
- Okay, my boss's name for the temp agency,
or no, maybe he was the Sprint guy,
was named Greg Driver.
(laughing)
Which is like one of the most classic names.
(laughing)
- It's like Mr. Mike Judge (beep)
like off his face.
- And he was like 35 year old guy
with this really beefy full goatee,
which is like would have the Sprint polo tucked in.
He's like, "Okay guys."
And we put the dry erase board.
I mean, it was just like classic.
He's like, "Jake, I'm not paying you
to stand around listening to music."
(laughing)
I'm sorry, Greg.
- So he's the guy who fired you on the fire?
- Yeah.
- Jake, Greg Driver here.
- I'm disappointed in you.
And he's like, "I'm pretty sure this guy,
he's just like some guy in his 30s
living in suburban Portland."
He was like killing, he's like jack off kids.
(laughing)
Trying to sell cell phones at a Circuit City.
And he's just like, he doesn't actually care.
- Who knows?
- He's calling me being like, "I'm disappointed.
I gotta let you go, man."
- Jake, I received a very disturbing call
from Marty down at Circuit City.
- Jansen Beach location.
(laughing)
- The number one song, maybe making some memories
for somebody in the corporate retail environment right now
is not "Old Town Road," but it's another fusion
of hip hop and country.
- Oh, is it the other dude that?
Yeah, I like this one more than "Old Town."
♪ I just need you to get real loose ♪
♪ Get comfortable ♪
- This song kind of sounds like it's from 1999.
- Yeah, it's like lo-fi.
- Yeah.
♪ Grab your love partner ♪
♪ And if you're by yourself, no worries ♪
- I would say my favorite songs today
are this and "Summer Girls."
♪ I wanna do the two step in cowboy boots ♪
♪ For a sweetheart and spend out with him ♪
- Yeah, this song already feels like weird
and sad and nostalgic.
I can already just picture like when we hand
time crisis off to the next generation.
- Yeah.
- And they're dropping an episode in 2029
in the ruins of Neo-America.
♪ 2029, 2029 ♪
Or no, they'd be 2039.
But they're just like, "Yo, you remember summer 2019,
Trump was president."
- First term.
- It's like, I vividly remember my mom reading the news
on her iPad and I was like, "Mom, who is Jeffrey Epstein?"
And she was like, "Don't worry about it."
And she just like turned up the get up by Blanco Brown.
I was just like sitting there, just like, "What the (beep)?"
(laughing)
♪ Take it to the left now and dip with it ♪
♪ Don't throw down, take a sip with it ♪
♪ Now lean back, put your hips ♪
- I can already hear like this in my neighborhood,
just like, "Summer 2019."
- Right.
- The Clintons had Epstein whacked.
But in my neighborhood.
(laughing)
♪ Do the butterfly, have a good time ♪
♪ Round, round, round around you go ♪
♪ It's time to show ♪
- This is the rarest song that I've only ever heard
on this show.
- Oh yeah, I've never heard on this show too.
The pedal steel literally is haunting.
♪ And spin out with 'em ♪
♪ Do the hold down and get it ♪
♪ Take it to the left now and dip with it ♪
♪ Don't throw down, take a sip with it ♪
♪ Now lean back, put your hips in it ♪
♪ To the left ♪
♪ Take it down now, take it, take it down now ♪
♪ Take it down now, take it, take it down now ♪
♪ Bring it up now, bring it, bring it up now ♪
♪ Bring it up now, bring it, bring it up now ♪
♪ To the front ♪
♪ Take it down and crisscross ♪
♪ Bring it up now, crisscross ♪
♪ Do whatever you like right here ♪
♪ Get down, get down ♪
♪ Just hop for it ♪
♪ Gonna do the two step and cowboy boogie ♪
♪ Grab your sweetheart and spin out with 'em ♪
♪ Do the hold down and get into it ♪
♪ Take it to the left now and dip with it ♪
♪ Don't throw down, take a sip with it ♪
- Yeah, this song is so sad.
- Yeah, it's like, he's like,
"Yeah, get out there and dance with your sweetheart."
But it's like so listless.
And you're like, "Brr."
It's like so screwed up.
(laughing)
♪ That was not so bad ♪
♪ Was it practical ♪
♪ That was not so bad ♪
- That was not so bad.
- We didn't get to this part last time.
♪ That was not so bad ♪
♪ That was not so bad ♪
♪ Was it gonna do the two step and cowboy boogie ♪
- That's gonna be in like the 2039 Stranger Things
that takes place in 2019.
(laughing)
- Yeah, that's weird though.
Reminds me of ♪ Where do we go ♪
♪ Where do we go ♪
♪ Not so bad ♪
♪ That was not so bad ♪
♪ Was it ♪
♪ Ah ♪
♪ That was not so bad ♪
- This is a super cut of Trump.
♪ That was not so bad ♪
♪ Was it practical ♪
♪ That was not so bad ♪
♪ That was not so bad ♪
♪ Was it ♪
♪ Ah ♪
♪ That was not so bad ♪
♪ That was not so bad ♪
♪ Was it gonna do the two step and cowboy boogie ♪
♪ Grab your sweetheart ♪
- This would definitely be the theme to like,
just like a really sad, weird coming of age movie
about summer 2019.
Shows up to the first day of high school.
♪ That was not so bad ♪
- They just sent like the demon back to the upside down.
Harold sends and they just look at each other.
♪ Was it practical ♪
♪ That was not so bad ♪
♪ That was not so bad ♪
♪ Was it ♪
♪ Ah ♪
♪ That was not so bad ♪
♪ That was not so bad ♪
♪ Was it gonna do the two step and cowboy boogie ♪
♪ Grab your sweetheart ♪
- I like how low it is in the second stir.
♪ Gonna do the two step ♪
♪ Take it to the left now and dip with it ♪
♪ Don't throw down, take a sip with it ♪
♪ Now lean back, put your head up ♪
- It's so crazy that this is the song
that unseated Old Town Road.
Real zeitgeist.
- Yeah, I love this song.
I love the get up.
I really respect Old Town Road, but I love the get up.
- Feel you.
- The two songs of the day are.
- Wait, what was that?
- Summer Girls.
- Oh, cool.
Almost sounded like-- - What was that sound?
- It almost sounded like extreme.
- Oh yeah, yeah.
Oh, totally.
♪ Now that I feel you ♪
♪ Now that I ♪
- Or like in 20 years, like a Tarantino-esque re-imagining
of some historical event that happened in 2019.
One of the kids from Stranger Things who's like 40
shows up and stops Jeffrey Epstein from getting murdered.
♪ Right now ♪
- This plays over the closing credits.
♪ I just need you to get real loose ♪
♪ Get comfortable ♪
- Wow, I can't even listen to it.
It's so haunting. - Once upon a time
in West Palm Beach.
- Once upon a time in Saudi Arabia.
What if some Americans actually gotten up off their ass
and went to Saudi Arabia to do their own research?
- Cool premise.
- Summer 19.
♪ I just need you to get real loose ♪
♪ Get comfortable ♪
♪ Grab your loved ones ♪
- Mark Foster biopic, dude.
- I was thinking like the FX Epstein, you know.
- Oh, true crime.
- American crime story.
- It opens with this.
And you see Epstein land in Saudi Arabia.
- He's playing from Paris, you know what I mean?
- Oh, really?
(laughing)
- Oh my God, God.
That is so heavy, dude.
- Good Lord.
- Well, dude, it could be a crossover series
with the new one they're doing,
which is about Clinton and Lewinsky.
- Oh, for real?
- Yeah.
- Wow, I didn't even know they were doing that.
- What's her name from Booksmart?
It's playing Lewinsky.
- Beanie?
- Beanie Feldstein?
- Oh, what's her name?
- Oh, Jonah's sister.
- Oh, yeah, yeah, what's her name?
- Beanie Feldstein.
- Beanie, yeah.
- Well, who's playing Clinton?
- I don't know.
- You gotta nail that one.
- That's compelling.
- I mean, people are so familiar with Clinton,
it's like, that's gotta be well cast.
- Yeah.
- Well, I wanna thank you.
Thank you to everybody who's in the top 10,
but especially to LFO and Blanco Brown,
'cause we're living in very troubled times.
You know, we're trying to do our best
to unpack this weird news,
and at least your music has that haunting quality.
It just feels right.
So shout out to Blanco Brown.
Anyway, this is "Time Crisis,"
a relatively fresh episode.
We'll see you next time.
- "Time Crisis" with Ezra King.
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