086. - Jonah Weiner

All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Stateside with Kai and Carter, a new podcast from The Guardian. And they are using this podcast to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions that we all have about what's happening in the world. And they do it three times a week. Jason, does that sound familiar to you? We don't really talk about, you know, a lot of international global news items and climates and cultures and sports and things like that. We do talk about fashion and wellness, but for everything else, Kai and Carter are a great place. All right, so who couldn't use more news? Listen wherever you get your podcast. or watch on YouTube. Want to make a podcast? Spotify's got a platform that lets you make one super easily, then distribute it everywhere, and even earn money. We like that. All in one place for totally free. It's called Spotify for Podcasters. And here's how it works. Spotify for podcasters lets you record and edit podcasts right from your cellular telephone or your computer. So no matter what your setup is like, you can start creating today. Then you can distribute your podcast to Spotify and everywhere else, those other places that podcasts are heard. Video podcasts are also available on Spotify. And when you want to take conversations with your fans to the next level, Q&As and polls are the best way to get them talking. With Spotify for podcasters, you can earn money in a variety of ways, including ads and... and podcast subscriptions. And best of all, it's totally free. Zero catch. We've been using it ever since we started How Long Gone. And ever since I discovered Spotify for Podcasters, I feel like having the option of turning off the Q&As and the polls on the user dashboard has really helped boost my creativity and take it to another level. I highly recommend giving it a try. Download the Spotify for Podcasters app or go to www.spotify.com slash podcasters to get started.

Buongiorno, Christopher. Buongiorno. I just want to start the show off with something you just said on Twitter that really spoke to me, and that's EDM will rise again. Let's not. I think that sets a good tone for this program. Yeah, EDM is rising back again to heal our troubled nation and world one gay anthem at a time. I said that as commentary because you, Chris Black, a known avoider of EDM and the dance arts. Dance arts. Okay, calm down. Posted a song that is by Romy, the female vocalist and band member of the XX, known for making... Some slowed down indie rock somber classic bops has now come out in a Robin-esque type of song. It was one of the only times you posted a new song on social media that I happen to not fall asleep to. Bitch, that shit slaps though. Honestly, it's a very good song and I'm really into it. I know. I really like it. I was saying in the group chat that one of the only good things to come out of COVID musically was the XX choosing, being like, hey, you know what? We can just make some house music while we're waiting to see what happens. We can explore. Other sides of our artistic flavors that we may have not done if we were on an album cycle or touring a record or whatever it is, they can do what is burning inside of their heart, which is create some bomb-ass dance music. Speaking of dance music, let's bring it into the 20th century. What would, if Donald Trump was an EDM artist and Joe Biden was an EDM artist, because they're debating tonight, what would the versus be? Who would the versus be if they were EDM? Who could you equate? What are the EDM equivalents of Donald Trump and Joe Biden? Chris, that is honestly, I mean, that's a question. I could do 1,500 words in MixMag for that and get my Pulitzer.

Mix mag, bang our line. So for Trump, you need somebody who, you know, a blowhard, dumb-dumb, who, you know, it's all show and no-go. There's no substance. There's no love of the game. Purely, you know, dubious intentions behind the decks. I guess it's going to have to be some type of marshmallow type of scenario. Maybe a Kygo. Deadmau5. No, because Deadmau5, even though... Are you guys friends? I am not friends with Deadmau5. We have politics. before in the club but but we have broke bread in the club together once or twice i wouldn't call him my boy i have not okay we do not have a shared contact on on ios 14 i will say that but okay so but you know he he's a he's he loves the game he's he's a he's a raver from from birth he like he makes all of his music on like period correct analog gear you know he he's he he's a real head he's a real head he loves the game despite you know appearances so okay so marshmallow would be a better trump yeah it would well that's that's another thing because marshmallow i think is probably also making his own music so it kind of needs to be somebody who is known for using ghost producers i mean is it a is it a chain smoker maybe i don't i don't know who's who's ghost producing nowadays but i thought they were all i thought it was all fake i thought the big edm was basically halloween no i mean you know my man calvin harris is is he's in the stew turning the knobs so who would joe who would joe biden be like tiesto like an old head Yeah, I think Tiesto is a perfect one. It could be a little bit of that. It could be a little James Murphy, just in terms of age. James Murphy, he's closer to 50 than he is 30. He only plays vinyl. He only uses vintage gear and samplers.

The dance music is preserved with live instrumentation instead of bloops from a laptop. But he's not really outspoken either way about things. He's not really old enough to be senile. He's probably a pretty sharp guy. So do you think even after doing all that coke and playing all that vinyl, he can still hear better than Biden? Yeah, you know what? I will say there's a DJ that... You know, it is a sad subject because this person just died, but there's a DJ named Eric Murillo. And he just passed away like a month ago. But he was a known, apparently, like there's all these stories coming out about him taking advantage of women and, you know, being a drug addict and an asshole. So he had a dark, dark past and ended up passing away from that. And everyone is just kind of like, oh, he's, you know, he's sucked the whole time. Why didn't you guys see this? He was, you know, he has a long standing record of abusing women. So maybe he, maybe he. would be the trump of edm oh okay yeah r.i.p to him i guess and also you know i don't you know it is illegal to say but you know if if trump ended up dying i don't think anyone would really have too much of a problem with that i'm not condoning that personally i see i see what you mean okay well i think that's a pretty good lineup for tonight i think that this versus is going to be slapping yeah this is no longer a presidential debate it is it is a it is a versus battle James Ellis, my public announcement partner, he suggested that we drug test these guys to see what they're on. Just hit them with a drug test to see what Gramps is on. And I think they're both on shit. Well, I mean, we know that Trump takes some type of speed in some form, right? That's what everyone kind of alleges. Trump is gacked out on some legal shit. Yeah, I forgot what the name of the drug is.

It's the one that starts with a V that has replaced Adderall. Okay, yeah. He's on that, and then there's videos and all these photos of him blowing white snot rockets of powder and having residue on his lapel. So he's crushing and snorting this shit. Like a real one. Like a real one. But yeah, who knows what Biden is on? Yeah, what is Biden on? Biden, I mean... He's probably on MCT oil and other like alpha. brain-focused energy stuff. You know what I mean? He's gone off the ginkgo bilboa. Yeah, he's gone off the ginkgo bilboa, and he's also gone off of the yerba mate. You know what I mean? I bet he's on some shit. But he's probably... I mean, if I was having to debate Trump live on TV, I'd probably be gone off them zans. You know what I mean? He'd just calm down. But he's already so calm, he might just fall asleep. Yeah, that's kind of the problem. He's Sleepy Joe, so he... He's the one who needs the Adderall snorting just so he can get some semblance of a pulse, whereas Trump needs to suck on a CBD gummy from TJ's cabinet to bring him back down to planet Earth. That's dead-ass true. That really is true. That's a good idea. So these guys are going to debate. I think it's 6 p.m. PT tonight, so I'll be tuning in. That's right around my bedtime, but I'll be able to stay up for an hour. I'll be able to stay up for an hour or so to watch my fellow grandpas be completely unhinged on national television. Are we able to live stream it online, or do we need... television oh i'm sure i'm i'm sure you zillennials can can stream it somewhere i'll be luckily i'm hardwired uh with spectrum cable over here at the at the villa carlotta so i'm good to go um thank god well me you know i might have to come over then okay yeah you're invited i guess um you know if you bring something

I don't feel too welcome, but that's fine. TJ, look, we're in a very serious business partnership. We're launching a television show. I mean, it's basically like how could... We don't need to increase the amount of times that you and I come into contact on a daily basis. Mi casa su casa. That's actually not what I'm saying. I'm saying I'd love to come in contact with you more. Yeah, I would, but my immune system wouldn't. Fuck you, bro. You're a spreader too, dude. No, no, no, no. I'm so tall that any particles flying out of my nostril, mouth, and hoof area is outside of the jurisdiction of the normal-sized human being. So I'm able to operate on a whole different playing field. Yeah, I can see that on a day-to-day basis. I'm over here coughing, sneezing. It don't affect nobody. It doesn't affect anybody. That's actually a great place to be. I mean, COVID is over, as we all know, so it's not even worth talking about, really. It is. RIP the novel coronavirus, and it stayed novel. You had a good run, Corona, but people... dead ass they don't care unless you're a narc you don't care anymore you want to go you want to go turn up with your people you want to hit the bar you want to go to a restaurant you want to go to equinox and fucking jerk off in the steam room like all that shit it's time to start living again isn't it chris it's time to start living again jason and i you know i think that i think that the american people would agree with me yeah all of them all of them agree with you for sure Maybe not all of them, but the majority of smart people. Well, no, I'm not saying it's smart or not smart. I'm saying that we're fed up with poor leadership, and that's why this debate is important to me. Yeah. I know that you saw that tweet about the guy comparing New York and L.A. spreaders of New York. So cool. New York people are shooting ketamine into each other's asshole while L.A. dudes are saying, would you be down to have a social distance hang in the park?

Do you, you know, it seems like a brag. You know, New York is bragging about how cool they are. I think both of, you know, they're two extreme sides of living for sure. And maybe too extreme on either direction. I would say they're both too extreme, but I would say that New York sounds pretty cool right now if you're looking to turn up and L.A. is full of pussies. But that's been a known, I mean, that's like a historical fact. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That has been true for centuries now. So the novel coronavirus, big COVID doesn't change that. It's just solidifying these facts that we've known for a long time. Okay, good. Well, I'm glad that we have a guest today that also has a deep-rooted fascination with the inner workings of the government, CIA, scandals, and conspiracy theories. Yes, yes, yes. And we can probe his mind to see where his head is at during these trying times. Jonah Weiner is the scribe behind the very, very popular Blackbird spy plane newsletter dispatch. which honestly feels like it came out of nowhere and has just exploded and become very, very popular. He gets a high caliber of guests, including people like myself and my contemporary musician Andre 3000. So, you know, it's a must read. And today's edition came out with Emily Bode. So that's three Atlanta legends, one newsletter, which is interesting. It's pronounced Bode. uh no it's just don't do that and then so but i think that i think that what what i want to do today though is get behind the man like who is this guy where did he come from how does he actually make money why does he live in san francisco that's insane you know a few a few other important questions to get to the bottom because you know i like to jason on this podcast we like to understand the the real drive behind people and why they do what they do fuck yeah i can't wait all right let's give him a jingle oh this is huge for me personally this episode of how long gone

It was brought to you by TaskRabbit. Oh, baby, let me tell you something. This is not a joke. I use TaskRabbit a lot because I can't do anything. You need some art hung? TaskRabbit. You need a fucking something put together? A cabinet? Got to reach that cheese grater on the top shelf? TaskRabbit. Anything you need, TaskRabbit can take care of it for you. How it works, TaskRabbit connects you with skilled taskers in your area. They can help you move. They can assemble furniture, repairs, yard work, mounting, and more. You can search for a tasker based on cost, skill set, availability, and past client reviews so you know exactly who's showing up and can have confidence that they know what they're doing because taskers have assembled over 3.4 million pieces of furniture, completed 700,000 home repairs. handled 1.5 million moves, and the numbers are just going up, Jason. Yeah, throw a little money at the problem. It's not so expensive. And that job that you really don't want to do is something that another person out in the world is very good at doing and would gladly do it in exchange for a little bit of money. So when life happens, your to-do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get $15 off your first task at TaskRabbit.com or grab the TaskRabbit app using promo code how long taskers book up faster, especially for same day tasks. So book trusted home help today. That is $15 off your first task using promo code how long with the TaskRabbit app or at TaskRabbit.com. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Squarespace. Obviously, Jason, you and I spend a lot of time on the World Wide Web, sort of our peers, our listeners, our friends, our colleagues, maybe even your parents if they're freaky. And if you're doing anything in the world, writing, taking pictures. I do topless boxing. You need a website. Exactly. A website that works, that does what it's supposed to do, that allows you to be creative, but also business-minded. Jason, there's one place to go for that, Squarespace. Yeah, Chris, I'm over here. I'm modifying calculators and putting Claude inside of them so you could cheat at school. And I just want a place where I could have everything all in one place. I can have the SEO tools.

So those future graduates can find me and, you know, I'm able to accept quote unquote donations for my services that might be gray area. You know what I mean? And then email campaigns. Hey, I got a new, you know, 2.3 version upgrade. Boom, boom, boom. Get the analytics going. Raise some money. Show your investor all of your cool analytics of what's going on. They're going to want to get in early and we can use Blueprint AI to make your website look as professional as your competition, if not more. So head to squarespace.com slash howlong for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code howlong to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by a new podcast from The Guardian. stateside with kai and carter this is covering a lot of our bases jason it's a it's trying to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what's happening in the world and i know you particularly have quite a lot of questions a lot of questions but how often because we do this podcast three times a week and that's a sweet spot how many times do they do three times a week and i i have a feeling just based on the platform and these talking points that they're maybe going to be covering different stuff than we do that's just a guess the guardian is not some billionaire owned They're not afraid to say what they want to say, brother. Yeah, Rupert ain't sniffing around in what journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman are up to over there at Stateside. But yeah, listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch it on YouTube. It's three times a week. And who couldn't use more news? Especially when it's not from here, let's say. Give it a listen. Give it a listen. Jonah, what's the vibe in big San Francisco right now? Has the air cleared up? You know, it's like a minute-by-minute situation. I'm in Oakland, which is an important distinction to draw if you're talking about the Bay Area. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, you know, I'm not from the Bay Area, so can you please explain? So, yeah, why is that such an important distinction? Obviously, I know, being a Cali boy, but, you know, not all of our listeners might know. Well, just broad strokes, it would be like...

I mean, real broad strokes, talking to someone who's in Brooklyn and saying, so how's it going in Manhattan? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Aside from any kind of like cultural stuff, which kind of tracks on the differences between the two, it's just geographically precise. I'm just a real stickler for this stuff. Are you of the mind that living in San Francisco proper is something that you would not want to be personally associated with? Yeah. So I, um, yes. Yeah. Short answers. Yeah. Uh, we, um, my, my LP and I, uh, used to come out here. Don't do that. Don't do that. A man after my own heart can let the man speak, Chris. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah, please. My, uh, yeah, we, we used to come out here, um, like to California on vacations and we never really found, like I'm from New York. We never really found the charm of San Francisco, the East Bay. has a totally different vibe, kind of like an east side of LA vibe in terms of bungalows. And, you know, I don't know, just it's not... Places that you can live without terrible people wearing vests? Yeah, you don't see vests as much. Certainly not like... Sorry, bad vests. There are good vests out there. They're good vests. They're kind of like... the Salesforce logo vest seems to kind of stop on the other side of the bay. You don't see those outdoors. Yeah, of course, no shots at any of our angels listening right now. Yeah, yeah, definitely not. Venture fam, you guys rock. You guys rock. We'll be in touch with our deck. I don't think the... So if you, you know, if you mistaked me for living in Brooklyn, I would be offended as a Manhattanite. That would offend me. And the... So, but what is the... What is the – I guess explain the difference of the people. I mean because is it more affordable or is it just a look you're going for? Or is the air cleaner? Is the lifestyle better? Or is it merely to be surrounded by like-minded folks? So there's kind of like a pre-COVID answer and then there's a post-COVID answer. Like pre-COVID, you would say, yeah, it's like generally your dollar goes a little farther in terms of the square footage of your crib. You might have a backyard.

which would be harder to come by in San Francisco because of the density, stuff like that. Also, a lot of people would actually bounce from San Francisco depending what part of town they lived in and come to the East Bay just because it's warmer. The sun comes out here a lot more. I didn't know that. Yeah, I didn't know that. I didn't know any of this stuff before I moved out here, but this concept of the microclimate, you hear about it a lot here. It wasn't a thing in New York, but you could start your day at some part of, let's say, I don't know, I don't even know the neighborhoods that well, like the Mission in San Francisco and move over to the marina and then move over to Oakland, move over to Berkeley and have a swing of 40 degrees in the same day. That's fucking crazy, actually. I had no idea. Very crazy. Those San Francisco... Tenderloin nights. It gets real, real cold. It could be 90 degrees at noon and then you're dipping down into the 40s at night. It gets literally and metaphorically cold in the tenderloin. Jason has to throw his Levi's trucker jacket over his shoulders for some oysters because his shoulders get a little chilly because he's wearing a tank top. I can only bring so much on the fixed gear and you have to plan accordingly when you're going out for your day out there. Yo, actually, you know, life hack Salesforce vest. That's why. Oh, shit. Good point. Damn. Now I finally, damn. Now finally. The vest just ain't for show. Yeah. What is this? So why did you move that? Why would you leave New York, the greatest city in the world for San Francisco? I arguably think one of the worst. Like, how would that happen to you? Yeah, and look, I'm not trying to get excommunicated from the Bay, but I think that I can ride for Oakland and shit on San Francisco and probably still be good in my hood. That seems like that would endear you to the locals that you like, probably. Exactly, exactly. But yeah, so from New York, we were actually, we were thinking about, you know, and my girlfriend, LP, my executive producer, my...

My EP, my LP. I was about to say, I back EP more than LP, so I'm going to try to make that my thing here on the show. Since Jason has already coined his little term. But anyway. You guys were looking for a change. Yeah. No, we were just thinking about California for a while because I would go to, you know, where you guys are at. I would go to Los Angeles a lot for work and have a lot of friends there and always enjoyed my time there. So we were thinking that it was going to be Los Angeles. But no, it's super straightforward. Yeah, we never felt San Francisco. But my girlfriend got a job with Apple. And so that just that Apple tractor beam pulled us across the country. There's no question of living down there. A, because like dirt lots with like shacks on themselves for $3 million down there because it's funny money and people want to have short commutes. So A, you know, it's just like wildly unaffordable down there. uh unaffordable san francisco we were not feeling for mentions that we've touched on and the east bay we always loved so we uh got a little crib in oakland um with a palm tree in the backyard and wow you know that was kind of a that was a must near the palm tree to and there's room and there's room for both tesles in the garage or can you only fit one we have like a like a five-car driveway actually that in true east bay form we since we just have a tiny little car we dug that shit out and made it a garden wow this is wow this is really you're really settled down in the garden is it mostly indica's or is it sativa's as well well actually i'm glad you gave me a segue jason because look i'm a new member of tj hive i like what i'm hearing what i'm seeing so far i don't know you that well but i hear among the data points that you have a plug when it comes to psilocybin so off mic I've got to chop it up with you. Do not say silo Sibon on this podcast. Say mushies or shrooms. Sibon is the only silo that I try to stay a part of. Sibon. Sibon punk. I'm trying to whip a Sibon truck. My pluggy actually listens to this pod, so she will be delighted to hear. I said this. I think I said this.

The podcast that you missed because you were busy, even though this is our job, I talked about how the packaging was so nice. I talked about the mushy packaging looking like dispensary level, but for sure. It was an unnecessarily enjoyable user journey for illegal drugs. Yes, it was. Anyway, sorry to derail it, but when you mentioned the mind-altering substances, I was like, oh, before I forget. So you and Bay are not chiefing big doinks, but you will do a weekend shroom. Exactly. Yeah, my THC intake, see, I use the proper chemical terms. I don't know why I'm doing that. Because you're a narc. Because you live in the Bay Area, bro. Yeah, is it narcy or is it like... that Bay Area respect for the substance. I don't know. I think it might be. Honestly, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say it's the Bay Area. Out here, you know, obviously, well, down there too, tons of dispensaries. So I was doing edibles for a while. I had this situation, still do. Have you guys ever, you know about a green out? Like a blackout, but it's a green out? Yeah, both of us are familiar with that. Yeah, I didn't know the term, but I've definitely experienced it before. Walk me through what your version of a greenout looks like. Yeah, so if I'm using it in the universal sense. So if I have, there's basically a blood pressure situation. My blood pressure must be low enough that if I have enough booze and get high enough, I will, it's only a matter of time before I pass out. Just straight up faint. Because it's something about, and typically it's kind of like you crash. Having had, you know, a few glasses of wine and having had some weed and then like you wake up to piss in the middle of the night and you've been lying flat and suddenly that change from horizontal to vertical, your blood just rushes out. So I had enough of those that I've just kind of fallen back on the, um, on the weed intake. But yeah, in terms of like a weekend, a weekend journey, uh, kind of blasting off, blasting off with the ancient forces. Maybe, uh, maybe I would recommend considering sleeping with the catheter.

Yeah, just to not be a pathetic user at all. Yeah, to have an uninterrupted bathroom break. Yeah, that does sound nice, actually. I'd love to sleep through the night. You'll be there eventually, Chris. That's a big priority for me, sleeping all the way through the night at 38 years old. Well, Jonah, we teased this in the intro, but you're the author of the very popular Blackbird Spyplane email newsletter. And we've talked a lot about the newsletter business on this podcast. I would say we're the premier newsletter business podcast so far. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're like an audio sub-stack about the business of sub-stacks. Exactly, exactly. But I think for a lot of people, including myself, you just came out of nowhere, bro. What the fuck? What's the deal? We need to get the full background on who is the man. Because I know you as a writer, but I need the full story from start to finish so we can give this popular newsletter some more context. Give us the tea on V. Yeah. So, man, it's, you know, maybe it's, maybe it's like an iceberg, you know, like you're just seeing the visible part, but maybe 10 years of work have gone into it. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Thank you. Wow. Well put. Sounds like some of that THC is still rattling around in there. I don't know. Yeah. Where should I start? I mean, you know, like in terms of like caring about clothes and the type of shit that we write about at Blackverse Pipeline, because it's actually a project. I write it, but in terms of finding stuff to put in the newsletter and just making decisions on what's going to go in there and other editorial decisions. Erin, I'm going to say, what are we agreeing on? She's the EP. She works on it with me. We've both cared about that shit for a while. What she does for Apple is related to the sort of looking for cool under the radar stuff that we do with the newsletter. She's like a, she's a recruiter, like a talent scout for their industrial design team. So she finds people who design, you know, in the world of industrial design and things like that. And, um, kind of stays, stays up on that. In addition to recruiting for tech industrial design, she also be dressing. She cares about clothes. Um, and how does she find the time? That's a lot. That's a lot, man. Jeez. Okay.

Well, Tim Apple also prioritized getting these little fitties off. So it's allowed in the schedule, I'm assuming. Corporate culture. That's right. That's right. And, you know, on my end. So, yeah, she has an interest in the kind of I just want to be up on. Like, you know, we travel. We just like go to like a small shop and say, you know, what are these people carrying? Kind of just staying up on shit. Something we're always interested in doing. And in terms of my kind of. writing work what I do is write about typically people in the arts but it's people who make stuff and sometimes it's well-known people but often it's people who are under the radar so it's not um while I haven't written about fashion that much and the newsletter has a kind of focus on fashion in terms of like the broad strokes of just caring about just being up on cool people who are kind of small and making interesting stuff that's something that we've both been interested in for a while and in terms of like backwards by plane kind of all coming together I don't know. It's just cool. It kind of got all the right attention at the right time, and I couldn't really engineer that. What kind of stuff are you normally writing career-wise? Profiles, music, movies, tech, finance? What are we talking about? No, no, no, no. It's basically like a culture writer, and it's typically profiles where I'm spending time with. For a while, I was on contract with Rolling Stone. So for them, it would be musicians and actors where you're just kind of hanging out, getting in orbit with someone. We've seen our most famous. We know how it goes. Yeah, exactly. Let's talk about that, though, because I have a lot of opinions on the death of the profile and how celebrities are now, unfortunately, allowed to control their image to the point where they're being interviewed by their friends or relatives. Is that hurting your bottom line? Is that with Rolling Stone or someone of that nature? Are they still pushing for that? Yeah, there's the two places that I I mean, now it's basically I have a contract with The New York Times Magazine. And before that, it was The Times Magazine and Rolling Stone. And those places thankfully haven't.

they can still kind of like, they have enough sway where there's not, you know, it's, yeah, but I mean, it's true. There's, there's definitely like a sense that, um, shit is trending in, in, in a kind of uncool direction. And, uh, yeah, I mean, certainly in terms of just like, just asking for the kind of like, well, I really like to, like, there's a certain kind of, even when you use like set aside the, the kind of profiles that you're talking about, Chris, where it comes to, um, you know, somebody's. you know, friend writing about them. There's this other kind of category profile that still exists and it's been around for a while where it's basically a writer got like an hour with a person in, you know, the stereotype would be like the Chateau, you know, breakfast at the Chateau for an hour. And then you have to kind of pretend like you have deep insights into this person from an hour spent with them. I never liked doing those either and was lucky enough with places like Rolling Stone and the Times to be able to say, no no no like you really have to you know to a publicist or whoever's kind of brokering the access like i really want to embed i want to post up want to spend time with you watch you work so i don't have to live in chloe seven years house for a month you understand that right yeah this is the only person i live this props to uh props to um my guy jimmy kimmel who actually volunteered years ago when he was um he was going from the like what is it like the 130 like the real the late late slot yes bumping up to the 130 slot and he just straight up invited me to live at his crib for three days uh in a guest room wow that's actually amazing that's actually amazing was this for rolling stone at the time that was for rolling stone yeah uh so not chloe but uh yeah jimmy incredible um so this was pre or post blackface for him Does he have a – did he? Oh, yeah, right. I guess post. I guess post. Is that a man show thing? That was a Karl Malone man show thing. It was a man show. I believe. But I mean that's pretty interesting because I think that – I wanted to get into that because what is enough time? Like do you – when you sit down with somebody, do you instantly – can you instantly kind of pick up on how open they're going to be or do you really have to crack the egg depending on who the person is?

yeah i mean what's yeah what's the sort of what sort of sucks um is that you don't really know until you sit down and by that point your access has probably been agreed upon yeah i think typically you just kind of like want i mean i'll put it this way let's say that there have been times when someone has given okay you know you have x you know hours you're gonna they're gonna be performing on you know the view or something like if like i did a lady gaga story years ago it's like she's gonna be on the view you can be backstage for that and then you guys are gonna get lunch and that's your access it's not ideal but um the kind of good moments actually come when the person's unguarded and you're just kind of like walking with them from their trailer at the view over to their car and you kind of they're just unguarded in those moments you basically just like want more surface area not to like do you like It's not to catch them in gachas. I don't really write hit pieces or anything like that, but just to have something that doesn't feel super stilted and just super stiff. People are super unguarded in cars, especially if they're driving. I think you'll do that in a lot of profilers. Is it because they're concentrating on something else? I think that's the thinking. They're looking at the road and it just doesn't feel like... It just doesn't feel like an interrogation, the way sitting across from someone might. I don't know what it is. And you're holding the interviewer's life in your hands. Well... Metaphorically and physically. I did a Travis Scott story down in Houston where he straight up came extremely close to killing all of us in the car in a wild fireball on a Houston highway. This is from Rolling Stone. What kind of whip was... Travis Scott pushing. I don't know what the model is. I don't know if there's multiple ones. There's a Lamborghini SUV. Oh, the Lambo truck. Yeah. The Lambo truck. And do you think, and I would never want to incriminate Cactus Jack, but do you think Cactus Jack himself was maybe under the influence of something? Oh, he was high as shit. It's in the story. Okay. Okay. What, what was, how many people were in the car and how loud was the music? The music is, all right. So here's, all right.

Paint the picture, Jonah. Do you want me to go into story mode? Because there's a pre-story before we even get to the lambs. Yes, situate us. Cactus Jack is a big topic on this podcast, as you know. So any intel we can get on the man himself, we appreciate. All right, so we've got to start off with Jonah. We've got to start off with your guest before we get to Travis. I'll be quick, though. Okay, okay. Take your time. I'm making me a lot of it. So I move out here to the bay. I love Oakland. One of the things that I get really into out here is cycling. You know, you live in Glendale, Jason. You've seen these guys go by on their way to the mountains in their spandex. I've become one of those dudes, get heavy into road cycling. Two years ago, I have a really bad crash, fly into a tree, lose control, flack out, have no experience, like no memory of the crash. Maybe a green out. Something to consider. Unlike Travis, later on in the story, I'm not high at all. I'm operating a vehicle. I'm just a dumbass because basically I take a bike that shouldn't be on a dirt trail onto a dirt trail because I'm a dumbass. Lose control, flying to a tree. I'm in a state park. I get helicoptered out to the Toronto hospital. They put titanium into my spine because I broke a bunch of shit. Oh, my God. Make me a cyborg. I come out of it a broken man, maybe stronger than ever. I'm not sure. Did it improve your dick game at least? Yeah, like something had to come out of this. So a lot of titanium. So all to say this. I'm in, I'm still recovering from this crash with one of those straight up like ambulance chaser neck braces when I interview Travis. So I'm down. Wow. Wow. This is amazing. So you brought your own saddle to the rodeo. Um, there were actually like, there were kids there who were like, because I'm, uh, so I'm like 39 now. I'm 30. I'm a 37 year old dude. Pretty old. Like I'm skewing old at the time. Um, and I think these kids came up to me and they thought like,

Because I was backstage and they were like, first off, they thought I was Lil Dicky because I hadn't had a haircut in the night. And I had a beard and curly brown hair and looked Jewish. And so they just assumed like there's no way that a guy who looks like this would be backstage if it wasn't Lil Dicky. Smart Money is on Lil Dicky. Yeah, that's a fair guess to me. Number one. Number two, also Smart Money, is they thought... I don't remember how they express this, but these kids came up to me and they thought that like the neck brace, cause like this molded plastic thing, they thought it was something like Rick Owens joint. Like maybe some kind of, um, statement, like fashion statement thing. Cause it was kind of like this guy, he did a thing on Lady Gaga, you know, she wears a lot of prosthetic stuff. Maybe he got a little piece from the collection. Who knows? Yeah, it was a little House of Gaga, like circa. House of Gaga? How could we forget? You're backstage mobbing with the Cactus Jacks of the world. So here, so now I'm going to get to your boy. So Travis, first off, it was my second time meeting him. I'd interviewed him once before. Wait, for a different story? No, for a different story like a couple years before, a year before. And so he's like, oh, man, what's going on, man? What's going on? I'm like, oh, what's up? And I'm in a neck brace, right? Like, it's clear that I'm fucked up. For the next two days I'm with him, he never wants remarks on the neck brace. That is so cool, actually. I appreciate that. And, like, the next day I'm in the car with him, and now we'll get to this moment in the Lambo. But he actually mentions that his mom, like, his mom kind of, like, walks fucked up. He mentions that. And he's like, yeah, when she was young, she had a bike accident. Here's my segue. I say, Travis, by the way, that's why I'm wearing this neck brace that you haven't commented on for the last 24 hours. He's like, uh-huh, word, and just keeps off. Damn. Hey, eyes on the prize. He doesn't need to know about me. He doesn't need to know about my life. You saw the show and then you partied after the show?

I don't know. Yeah. I think probably like I was at Astro World and then the next day he took me around, like driving me around to like, you know, this is my childhood house. Here's where I used to hang. Here's my high school. Here's my church. Kind of like a drive around Houston, like Houston suburbs. And basically the moment where he almost kills us all. Yeah. So I'm in the shotgun. There's probably three dudes piled into the back and it starts raining like crazy. And I'm not trying to. Flex here, I just have a horrible memory. Is it Kylie that he was with or Kendall? Kylie. Kylie. Kylie's texting him because she's about to get on a plane with Stormy and she's like, where are you? He's like, oh shit, I'm 10 minutes away even though he's 40 minutes away and he's trying to hold her off and getting on this plane. So he's speeding on the fucking highway going, it's in the story I think because I'm looking at the fucking odometer. With my neck brace on, just having been through, like, a life-threatening accident. I'm like, holy shit. And he's talking to me. Music is blasting. And maybe he punches it to, like, 110 or something like that. And up ahead of us, a few hundred feet, you can just see brake lights. Like, the cars ahead of us are not moving. They're stopped. And he is not decelerating at all. Like, he's just, like, doing 110, about to just, like... absolutely just like pile drive, like a Range Rover or whatever the fuck is in front of us in the lane. Like, and I think at that point you kind of not be corny, like a, just like on some peer pressure shit. Like you don't want to be the nerd. He was like, Oh, Hey, uh, can you drive a little slower? Like a, and just be like the power dynamics of being a reporter. Um, you know, whatever. I don't know. You don't want to poo poo on his parade. You're trying not to just, yeah, you shut up a poo. So. But I was like, dude, you really have to, like – But then I did. But then I did. I don't want to be that guy, but you're about to kill us all, Travis Scott. I mean, like, A-O-U-R. And, like, real talk, I think, like, the weed carriers in the background had to be grateful that I spoke up because they can't be happy about this. They can't. Yeah, you're the first person who's ever stood up to them. I mean, granted, I had, like, a very easy segue. I was like, dude, like, I almost just died in a bike accident. Like, please, like, chill.

But, yeah, but, like, it comes down to him swerving into the next lane and, like, missing from the Range Rover by, like, you know, six inches. I don't remember how we got on this. I think you asked about. Well, I just think these stories. Yeah, well, I just think these stories are always interesting because I feel like, you know, somebody like that is, you know, he's on one. Whereas I feel like someone like Jimmy Kimmel, it's a very calm experience. And Gaga is on one. So I feel like I. Which situation do you feel like is most beneficial to you as a reporter? Someone like Travis Scott and Lady Gaga, who are a little bit more unhinged and it's really, really crazy? Or like a calm, more like familial situation with someone like Jimmy Kimmel, who's like a big star in his own right? That's interesting. I mean, I actually wouldn't even like oppose those because in both cases, you're getting a lot of time and you're getting a lot of material. It's just kind of like a different, I mean, like, yeah, the Jimmy Kimmel is definitely like the bourgeois version where he has like, Uh, this might impress, uh, um, the, uh, the gourmand on the chat, TJ. He has a, uh, Jimmy has like a custom built pizza oven by, uh, who's the dude in Arizona? Bianca. Chris Bianco. Yeah. So Chris Bianco came to Kimmel's crib and like. custom you know oversaw the custom build out of a pizza oven so you know like jimmy's making us pizza in the backyard uh we're going down to his like beach house in hermosa um that's the one where um where adam perry lang was staying when he got raided by the by the fbi oh i know that he's friends with adam perry lang but i don't know that story what happened um like the at that beach house he was adam adam perry lang was staying there And then there was, like, somebody called the police or something like that. And they came to that house and said there was, like, some type of, like, possible, like, terrorist threat going on at that house. And then later on it came out that that chef was also previously a private chef of Epstein on his private pilot. Oh, right, yeah. Right, right, right. They're trying to, like, they're trying to get information out of him because he apparently saw a bunch of shit back in the day.

Well, RIP. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Well, especially because he's about to, you know, disappear for a while. Who? Epstein? Oh, I would just assume APL. If he's got the dirt, it's curtains. It's curtains for him. He's about to get suicided. Yeah, he might get suicided. Anyway, you know, I don't know, in both those cases, you're getting a lot, like, basically, I just love a lot of time with someone, and in both cases, you know, like, very different, like, like, Travis is not necessarily, like, the, um, quite the same lively quote that Jimmy Kimmel is, because Jimmy Kimmel is, you know, he's, he's, he's slinging zingers, you know, he's, he knows, he's aiming for the rafters, whereas Travis Scott is, uh, maybe not quite as introspective, but at least with Travis Scott, like, we're pulling over to a gas station, we're hopping out, we're getting loosies, some dude in the, um. Oh, or Swisher Sweets, like some dude in the gas station comes up and talks to me, you get that interaction. Like that's, I just love kind of being in orbit and going kind of like from place to place to place with someone. And I feel like, I mean, you guys tell me like just, or, you know, or Chris, like as someone who cares about profiles, like I feel like just when you, there's a lot of like being in one place, going to another place, going to another place, just as a reader, that story feels like a higher, like a higher level to me. Uh, I feel like I really spent some time with someone. I think the challenge, if I, if I were in your position, I think the challenge would be, I think I struggle with wanting to be like liked by the person. You know what I mean? Which you cannot do. That's like a whole thing where you're doing these kinds of stories. Like you have to, you can't like, but there's a fine line, right? Where you want them to like you. So they open up, but you also need, you might need to ask a difficult question that would, you know, it's a, I think that's the struggle in this situation. Absolutely. There's, there's definitely like a certain kind of, um, there's probably some certain like Android, like, like weird, like some part of the brain is not functioning like journalist mindset where you can actually be really off putting and it, and like you just maybe make the subject uncomfortable enough in just the right way that they open up. But I'm definitely of the type to kind of like really perform that I'm listening to them. And it's not necessarily have them like you, but definitely have them not be like weirded out by you. And I guess that's.

I don't know. At a certain level, that's kind of the same thing, right? Well, people are also so, I mean, I think a lot of celebrities are also just so skeptical in general. You know what I mean? Like of any journalist, no matter what the outlet is. So I think that's a hurdle you're getting over no matter what. You know, yes and no, it depends. But sometimes I've found, and this is actually how I like make sense of Travis. This might not be true, but it's like my theory on like a Travis Scott not mentioning the fact that the dude showing up to interview him, who he's seen before. like clearly has just been through like a massive trauma and is wearing, um, and is wearing, I think it's because these guys, like a lot of the times, like when you're at the, and by these guys, I mean, just like when you're at that level of fame, um, and that level of success, everyone who enters your orbit is kind of there because they are like in some way or another oriented towards the same goal, which is your success, right? They're on your team. It's, Oh, Hey, like Travis, this is, this is homie from McDonald's. He wants to sign a deal with you. Whoever is like, whenever you like, if you've gotten that close to them, it's almost like they just slot you into kind of like the sycophant orbit. And so they oftentimes kind of let their, I feel like they let their guard down. They ask me like, no questions. Just even something like. fine you don't need to like be curious about me it's not like a date but just on some like you just think that like if your hackles were up you might almost want to disarm me and be like oh hey man like what happened are you okay and just do yeah sociopathic like oh shit dude like pretend to care they don't even do that and i think that almost speaks to the fact that they're just like you are here to help me be stronger like you are here like i wouldn't even suspect you of writing a piece that doesn't you know that isn't like a puff piece or you know what i mean like i like Like, Drake was a similar way, like, just, like, no question. Oh, hold on. We didn't know you. We didn't know you had mobbed out with the boy. Yeah, similar experience where I spent a lot of time with him as well. What Drake era is this? So he's, um... Fuck, I have such a bad memory. He, um... It was whenever the James Terrell show happened at LACMA, because we went to that together. Okay. Like, before Hotline Blame video. Okay, so this is, like, prime Drake. This is when he's, like, peaking.

yeah well i mean yeah yeah yeah so he's he's he's living at the yellow estate in calabasas and i go out he's another dude who i'd met once or twice i'd like i went up to toronto once and hung out with him in the studio when he was recording um take care and saw and saw him lay down the line about like eating at french laundry oh wow wow god god's plan that a classic line that appeals to every member of this podcast exactly um some line about like i don't know if the line is about per se or thomas keller or what up in yonville i don't remember what the line i don't know i know exactly what you're talking about and unfortunately the bars are not coming off my dome right now um but those bars out so you so what are you doing with drake you're in la yes and i think i'm like met him in calabasas and um you know chubbs is out on the basketball court playing a game with some other members of the entourage. Just to be clear before we move forward, I'm Drake and Jason is Chubbs. Chubbs is the turtle of OVO and I am the Johnny Drama. Okay, I apologize. I apologize. I'm sorry, Jonah, continue. Being Chubbs is not bad because Chubbs is the shooter, right? Chubbs is a security. He was the original head of security. That's right. But is Chubbs shooting? I think he's graduated. I think he's graduated regardless, but I would say, honestly, he's more of a shot caller. But I haven't spent time with Chubbs. Maybe Jonah can shed some light on that. I didn't exchange a lot of words with Chubbs. I mean, who has, really? He's kind of a silent type of guy, at least when I was around. That's how the shooters be, though. That's what I'm saying, Jason. Exactly. The shooters are the ones. That's a good point. That's a very good point. They're in the cut. They're in the cut, just quiet. And then if something needs to happen, it happens. Right, right. They can't be bogged down with conversation because you have to be ready to squeeze at any moment. Exactly. You have to let it spray when Jonah walks in asking too many questions. Exactly. I apologize, Chubbs. So Chubbs, yeah. YOLO estate, Calabasas crib. Which, by the way, that's when I uncovered, I think,

Actually, a few things came out of the story. One is the... to me, canonical bit of Drake lore, which is that he bought the house because years before he did a Google image search for world's largest pools. No, no, no. I didn't know this. No. Or like world's craziest pools. I think it was largest. And this house came up because it has this insane, insane kind of like outdoor pool that like has like a man-made grotto and like a bar in the grotto and like a waterfall and all this shit. So like he had this, he had this crib on his vision board for many years. My king. Drake is a known Olympic swimmer. He needs that type of yardage. He needs the grotto for all the chicks. That's what he needs. He ain't swimming. He needs a grotto big enough to where the chicks can be far enough away where they can't see him doing his real grotto business. I see what you mean. I've actually never been to that house. Hey, bro. Hey, bro. I've never been to that house, but it's pretty insane, right? I don't know if he renovated it because I think he moved in pretty soon after – rather, I was seeing him pretty soon after he moved in. And I remember – I mean, look, that architectural digest spread on the – it's not going to surprise you to hear that the joint was kind of like – uh, let's say day class A or, you know, over the top and gaudy. But I think that it was like over the top and gaudy and day class A because of the previous owner who was like, had owned some either like one or like a small chain of like weird, not cracker barrel, but some kind of like Southwestern themed like burger joints. Um, and so there was a real kind of like ugly, like waxed yellow wood, like wagon wheel chandeliers type. In his defense, that's every house in Calabasas before it gets remodeled. Exactly, because everyone has horses. It has that nouveau equestrian 90s energy going on there, or at least in the heyday of Calabasas. Right. So we have to imagine that Drake made some changes, but it still very much felt like that vibe from the previous owner, which honestly was just a bit of a letdown. I wanted to see something a little...

I don't know. Something a little more YOLO. A little more YOLO. I'm trying to remember if it said YOLO on the gate or not. Man, I have a bad memory. I need to read that story again. He might have made that change. He might have like – Yes, that's the first thing. That's what you do. Before you replace the lighting fixtures, you have to put YOLO on the broad iron. Before you even call Spectrum to set up the Wi-Fi. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So did you hang out there or did you just pick him up? I think I – Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what it was. We hung out there. Forty was actually in a studio, like a bedroom. Forty was posted up there. He never emerged. He was in the lab. He was making tracks. Never emerged. That's my Forty. That's Forty. I mean, look. Eyes on the prize. He's not there to cloud chase with the Rolling Stone rider. He's there to make the hits. Yeah, he's in there with a dust buster vacuuming behind an engineering board. And organizing cables. So Drake and I hang out by the, we post up near the grotto, chop it up for a little bit. And either later that day or the next day, we go to the James Terrell LACMA show where there was this, it's called like the perceptual sphere or something like that. This thing that you had to like make a reservation like months in advance to get into. But since he's Drake, pulled some strings, you know, he had clout with LACMA and we were able to kind of get in and, you know, like I got to watch Drake kick off his Tims because you couldn't wear shoes in the Terrell. He went in there. Uh, we went into the other, like, like one of the Terrell rooms. And then in that room, this was very funny because Drake, uh, like to, I don't know if it was Chubbs or whoever was with us. He was like, yo, yo, take some shots of me. And he took all these like incredibly like contemplative, like pensive gazing off into like, you know, the, the beautiful iridescent blue light. Um, like took all these shots for the gram and like caption them. Like, this is like, this is this moment of Drake where he's taking those shots, gazing off contemplatively. And then the captions are like searching.

so i get to see that and when and it's when we're so the other bit of folklore is when we're walking into that like piece together i think i say something like you know like man rappers are really talking about art these days uh and and at that point he's like uh man like it's like it's kind of tired you know like jay-z like oh it's corny like all these people talking about art so much and whatever the quote was like kind of shat on jay-z a little like said it was played out maybe it's like jay-z was Copying him. I don't know what it was. But Jay-Z had to drop a bar in response to that Jonah Weiner, Drake profile probe. Hey, hey, hey. You better watch your back. Where he said, and by the way, and then Drake hated the story. And there's a line about me on, if you're reading this, it's too late. But we can get that one next. We can get that one next. First off, Jay-Z goes, sorry. Some people say that he said Mr. Drizzy. I thought he said Mrs. Drizzy. He said, sorry, Mrs. Drizzy, for all the art talk. I'm just hyped about all the shit I bought or something like that. So, you know, they had to come to terms, apparently. I'm sure Drake was just like, hey, you know how these writers do. You know how these snakes do. Exactly. You always blame the snake writers, the assholes. So what did Drake come for? He came for the neck? He didn't come for the net, but on the song where he's on the phone with his, it's like the concept is that he's on the phone with his mom. He says something like, I'm grown mama. You always told me watch out for Rolling Stones. You can't trust these Rolling Stones or something. That's boring. That's not even a sub. That's pretty direct. Yeah, but it wasn't, you can't trust Jonah. Sure, sure, sure. What was Drizzy upset about? I've told this story before, but it's pretty good. It was supposed to be a cover story. Celebs hate when it's not a cover, if it's promised a cover. Hey, justifiably. But here's the thing. The reason that he got bumped was because Philip Seymour Hoffman dies. And Rolling Stone says, we've got to crash a tribute cover to the GOAT.

We've got to put PSH. It's a heroin thing you don't know. Yeah. God damn it. So he got bumped. Oh, so this was a big story because he, like, publicly said something. Exactly, exactly. And then there's the shit about, like, the Jay-Z, whatever else kind of, like, controversial came out of it. But mostly I think he was pissed off about, you know, justifiably. The thing was he was like, hold my – he was like, I think he – Did a blog post? Did he have a blog? I don't know where he would have read it. Yeah, yo, the OVO blog spot was a legendary destination on the World Wide Web. So maybe that's what it was. The whole thing was like, yo, no disrespect to Philip Seymour Hoffman, but that was my cover. How do you say that without disrespecting a literal dead genius artist? Drake's point was you should have just held mine for the next issue. And I think the thing was they didn't have anything. It needed to. whatever it needed to run like they didn't have something to hold it they didn't have something ready to go do you listen to hip-hop is that your genre of choice or does that is that just um what you happen to dabble in listen to music like the counting crows like i like yeah let's talk about cool music i could go on and on but what do you listen to um I listen to less. I mean, I still know. I love rap, but I'm in like the wash stage where I'll just like put like it's hard for me to get more current than like I just play numbers on the board. Like I'm kind of like frozen at numbers on the boards in terms of my like wash, like push a T kind of like. Did you grow up listening to real New York hip hop? Yes. Well, because I was born in Brooklyn, but then I grew up, we moved when I was about seven to Staten Island. And so, like, I am 12 years old when, like, the Wu-Tang, like, and I went to the same, like, public schools as a lot of Wu-Tang guys. So, like, you would start to see, like, when I was, like, 11, 12, these, like, hand-drawn stickers with what I didn't know at the time was, like, the Wu-Tang W. So, like, I was very much, like, you know, just, like, super stoked to be from the same place as Wu-Tang, listen to all that shit, listen to Mobb Deep, kind of like early 90s.

you know new york city kid into um into rap for sure so you were born and raised in the slums of shaolin Yes. Yes, I was. Absolutely, Jason. Thanks for pointing that out. There's a section of Staten Island that's mobbed up. Yankees players have their mansions. Gambino crime family members have their mansions. I was not in that neighborhood. I was in a more mixed neighborhood called St. George, which is right by the ferry terminal. For my true five borough appreciators out there, St. George. Five borough appreciators. It's not just four boroughs in my mind. I understand. I'm a one borough appreciator, so I'm not even close to what you're looking for. Jonah, did you participate in all five elements of hip-hop? I've never danced. But I did like tagging. It was very cool. tagging was very cool and and i did go out on extremely uh toy level bombing missions what was uh what was your graffiti name if you don't mind me asking i think the statue of limitations is up now god i almost like i'm almost so embarrassed let me think about disclosing that i'm just kind of embarrassed by by how toy level it was but this was when like like iraq was kind of like popping like um so like those dudes were who were like actually cool like you know you would see sace like dash like it was kind of around the time that like Dash Snow is tagging as Sace. And, like, what's his name? Kunle is tagging as Ear Snot. Jason's a big graph head, so choose your words carefully. You're your family, Jonah. Oh, hell yeah. For graph heads. Hell yeah. I thought you were going to break his spray finger, Jason, if he talked sideways. Oh, no sideways talk. I was very respectful. I never clipped anyone. I never buffed anyone. Jason knows why I use these terms. You don't strike me as a side buster. Jason, did you tag? I did. I did tag heavily. That's actually where my DJ name came from. But jeans was the name that I wrote. I was going to say, because them jeans, you're really risking the police coming by with a name that long.

That's a good point. It takes a lot of cans to get that. The train is going to leave the station by the time he gets done with them jeans. Oh, man. I want to nerd out. Man, I'm going to resist nerding out about 90s East Coast Craft Legends. You can save that for the paywall, Chief. Yeah, we'll save it. Let's get back to the newsletter because now that we've got the background, your shit is fucking popping, bro. It's inescapable in a good way. So true. I think people – you said it. Thanks, sweetie. A lot of people are like – because they saw that you had guests like me, obviously. So it's extra popping. Even a popping newsletter has a slow week. Go on. It's true. Some people didn't return emails. But people are always like, yo, what is it? Now it's obviously more established. But at the beginning, people were asking me, what is this? Who is this? How does he get these guests? And when, when you and I talked about it, you were like, um, I emailed them or, or like somebody recommends it, but like, I guess maybe going through the process of how someone becomes a subject and what leads you to that would be, would be helpful for people to know. Yeah. Right. Um, well, I feel like friends is the case of like the craziest one that maybe you'd like. I don't know what would have had people asking you like, who is this? How did they get this guest? Um, besides Andre 3000, when he, um, when he put out his, uh, like post George Floyd, he put out a bunch of t-shirts based on the jumpsuits that he'd worn, um, with sayings. And he was going to do one interview to promote it. And he has, uh, people in his camp who fuck with the fucking newsletter at that, at that early stage. And they were like, Hey, Andre, um, like knowing, I guess, cause you know, he's, as we know, like he's an idiosyncratic guy. Like he, he didn't want to do something like CNN or Rolling Stone. He went through like a zag instead of a zig. And they're like, check out this newsletter. Um, I think we were probably like a month in at that point. So we've done, you know, enough. for him to like give it a look. And he is a huge Rage Against the Machine fan. I think like the week before I'd done this like long post about this one Rage Against the Machine t-shirt that I own and the graphic on it and how it used to be this like CIA pamphlet. And he just saw that. He's like, oh, hell yeah. Like, this is my, this is weird.

relatively no one reads it this is exactly what it was like but like the smart thing on his part too that he knows it's going to get pickup anyway so it's like it's almost like there's no downside because pitchfork is still going to write about it um but he looks like cool and weird justifiably because he went with this strange you know Oakland what was the what was the uptick in subbies looking like that i mean that's still like um Look, Chris Black is in the top five. Thank God. Andre is like leaps and bounds. Top five of that month, I'm assuming? All time. All time, bitch. I get no respect on my own show. But I think how deep you're going and how voicey it is. I said that. I think this part got cut from that BOF story about these micro economies. But I was like, the reason this newsletter is so popular, partly. is because he fully has a voice and it's not just like facts only. You know what I mean? You're having so much fun with it. And then after we spoke, I was like, oh, this is not how he talks. He's not a monster. He just has, you know, he writes in this way that's like really fun and engaging and makes this stuff more interesting. You know, so I mean, did that become, is that a style you had developed on your own before or did that come naturally as the podcast started? Or excuse me, as the newsletter started. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The visual podcast. The visual podcast. Yeah, exactly. I never thought of it that way. Fuck. I guess it's like a stupid voice that I have in my head, kind of like a hyperbolic John's obsessed voice. It certainly helps for me to kind of go into a persona to a degree. Not that it's, you know, I mean, it's a version of myself, but obviously it's a fucking psycho, like it would be an obnoxious person to be in a conversation with. But yeah, it's like a persona. dip into, um, that probably just helps. Cause like, you know, if I have to switch back to New York times magazine mode, it's, it's just like a very clear delineation and like the parts of my right, the parts of my brain. Um, but yeah, I mean, and also I think, I think that it's true though. There's like that sense of having fun, uh, probably a, it just like keeps me doing it. It keeps me excited about it. And I think that it also does like the really fun thing is there's this whole, um, like, so, you know, the name of it is Blackbird spy plane. There's this whole kind of like, um,

dumb vocabulary around like intel and recon and dossiers and under the radar and this whole kind of like spy vernacular and what's very fun is i'll get like you know dms from people or emails from people uh who subscribe or who like the newsletter and they're like yo you gotta hit us with some some of that mach 3 intel on backpacks next week um they're using they're using the way that people have adopted lp from jason's vernacular they're adopting they're adopting a lot of fun with it so you're so you're building a community around this you know kind of character that you've created. Yeah. I think it just makes it fun. Just like, I mean, this is anything like you just kind of like learn a certain kind of like language for like whatever kind of community. And then it's just fun to kind of like use that language in the sense of just knowing an in joke that other people don't know. Um, but, uh, but, uh, yeah, it, it, it does seem to make it more fun for people and probably also just like makes it, I don't know, just puts a little distance between me and what is like, obviously like ultimately kind of frivolous thing, which is just like a newsletter about like, yo, this backpack is, is beautiful. Sure, sure. Now, your subscriber model is what? What is the subscription looking like? We are both aspiring sub-stack heads. We both have a newsletter. Chris is more established. I have one post. It was a really good post. What is a cadence that you would recommend for the free versus not free paywall versus... you know open content you know i mean that's a good question like for us what we do is um and this is not like set in stone but what we've been doing and what the plan is to do like free free public post to the mass list on um tuesdays and then on thursdays there's a subscriber only one so so 50 50 free yeah yeah and you know there'll be like moments when there's something special and we can like deviate from that but um That's what we're doing because it does actually – You're posting – you're doing two posts a week then. So that's pretty – Two posts a week. Pretty frequent cadence I guess. Yeah. It fucking takes – like even like as dumb as that fucking voice is and you think that I'd just be hammering it off. Like in terms of finding shit and like making sure that the shit that we find is on point and then either contacting the people who made it to get a little bit of information about it or whatever it is. Like it just wound up taking a long time. So there's some – like you have like politics newsletters where it's just like –

A, like a gifted, prolific writer, I guess, but also they can just like look at the news of the morning and just like bang out fucking, you know, a thousand words. And so like newsletters like that have like way more, you know, frequency. I think it depends on, cause I know yours is like a food, a food newsletter, right, Jason? Yeah. I don't know what that category looks like. I don't know what people want from, since like Blackbird Spyplane is like pretty heavily servicey, like since there's stuff to cop. kind of putting people onto things. We feel like since it's a little less opiniony, although we do things like that sometimes, we feel like you can kind of like, I don't know if it's opinion, maybe you need to do more. I have no idea, but you'll, you'll be like, but yours will have service, right? You're going to do how to's. Yeah, I believe so. There will be service. Right. I don't know. I feel like you can do a little less if you're putting that much effort into – if there's that much value packed into a post. What's the other – what are the bells and whistles looking like though? Because I know you have the Blackbird Spy Mall. So what exactly is that? The Blackbird Spy Mall is like a place where basically we find something dope and it's not like – there's necessarily a story around it. It could just be like we found this insane vintage 90s L.L. Bean fleece on eBay. This shit is dope. It wouldn't go in the newsletter because there's no real story around it. We'll throw that. You know, this is buried on page 48 of the eBay results for like vintage fleece. And they, you know, misspelled two words. So no one's going to find it. We'll put that in this thing called the Blackbird Spy Mall, which is kind of like running list of just like joints or like RIP. Like if Totokayo had like one thing buried deep on sale, be like, yo, you might not have found this. But this is just like shit that we find. Basically, it's like, yeah, linking to shit that is a little. And you're not doing any click through dollars for that?

or we don't we don't do no we don't do any um affiliate links on those the only thing that we do is when we link to ebay stuff this is not for dope because it's like 30 cents as a payout but we do ebay affiliate links just to kind of like get a little more um just info on like oh what are people clicking on yeah totally it's not like but it's not scalable in terms of affiliate links because it's like oh we found this one l bean it's not like there's a you know a hundred of these it's not like a fucking coffee machine that we're linking to in like a best coffee machines roundup where you can just like make a lot of dough off those. So that's not the model. It's really subscription only. So yeah, if you subscribe behind the paywall, you get the spy mall. And then the really cool thing that's developed is just, it's sorry, all these terms are super dumb, but classified spy talk, which is the chat room, which is the chat room behind the paywall. And that actually has been really cool because it's basically like a place for people to kind of like ask questions. yo, I'm looking for a fucking like a water bottle. And I'm like, well, it's kind of a semi boring question or too specific of a question to put in the newsletter. But I own a clean canteen and maybe someone else in here has a cool fucking water bottle they want to recommend. So kind of like people like it's not a comment section in this or it's not a chat room in the sense that anything goes, but specifically about kind of like, yo, put each other on to cool stuff. Like, yo, I have this thing and I love it or I'm looking for this thing. And it's been pretty. Cool actually there because we had no idea how that was going to go to see that the people in that chat room, A, are very posi-vibed because we try to keep the vibes posi. No one is trying to stunt on anyone else. But the taste level is pretty cool. The recommendations in there have been pretty good. What platform do you use for your chatting? Right now it's all – it's basically – it's not ideal but it's working out okay. It's just a long-running sub-stack comment thread. Got it. And maybe if that proves to be kind of like, I don't know, too ungainly with time, then maybe like a Discord or something. But right now it's nice to just have it all on Substack. Okay, yeah. I will consider stealing that. Yeah, go for it. Jason, I can't wait until you get a community around you. I think it's going to be a really special thing for you.

I already do have a community, Chris, because I actually reply to my DMs, not like you. Your community is just people who like me and have to deal with you, but I understand what you're saying. My community is where all the people who have been scorned by you come to feel welcome and safe. That makes sense. Jonah, is this a career path you're forging, or will this always be a secondary income stream, or would you guys love to be doing this full-time? you know, uh, uh, it's like right now it would not be sustainable at all full time for me, much less for both of us. Uh, the numbers, like the numbers have been really heartening. Like the number of people who, um, signed up, uh, and continue to sign up for the paywalls. Like it's super dope because you like, I had no idea. I guess there's like right now, obviously there's the thing going on with newsletters kind of being in the consciousness, but just the notion, I think like Patreon is part of this as well. But like people are kind of like, And I guess even just like legacy media going behind paywalls, people are kind of like familiar with the notion that you pay for a subscription for something. And I just didn't know if that was going to be the case. So that's all been like super heartening. And, and again, it's also part of just like having that, you know, community people who use the terms, like, I guess they're just excited to be behind the paywall and feel like they're part of the community in that regard too. But yeah, it's, that would be super awesome. It's like the, the fucking like the. what would it be like the X, Y axis is trending in a cool direction. But, um, even if it got to a place where I could do that full time and it does take a lot of work as it is, I still love kind of like the magazine work, which happens less and less and less these days for a variety of reasons, like COVID through a, obviously a huge fucking monkey wrench in my like. you know, typical routine of like getting in Lamborghini trucks with people. Sure, everyday life. Maybe your magazine work will come alive when you're not doing it, you know, when you don't need to rely on that money for living. Yeah, I wonder. But I was just down in LA doing like an interview in like, you know, distanced outdoors. Like that's what's dope is at least I can hop on the five. I haven't flown yet. I was talking with Chris a few weeks ago about flying. I haven't.

I haven't been on a plane since March, but anyway, like can get down to LA, um, and do interviews there. So all of us, all of us celebrities live here. So there's a lot of profiles to be done. Who'd you come down to LA to chat with? Or is that covert info? No, I can talk about it. This is a piece that I've been, like, I first met this dude about writing about him six years ago and it's kind of been off and on since then, but it's a big David Fincher profile that's coming. Oh, wow. Wow. Amazing. Yeah. Or two months from now, I'm not sure. Fincher's really in the zeitgeist right now. What's making you say that? I feel like I saw a big Ringer thing about him. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was like a ranking kind of situation. It wasn't like a profile necessarily. Right. Yeah, yeah. Six years is a long fucking time, bro. Yeah, I met him when he was editing Gone Girl, and it was going to be a New Yorker profile at that point. I had an assignment from the New Yorker to write about him, and he was like, yeah, let's do it. and he's like i'm doing this show for hbo and then the show fell through and the story kind of fell through uh and then the times got in touch with me at the start of the year they're like hey if interest got a new movie coming why don't you holler at him i was like well as as it happens i tried to do this shit six years ago but uh i am in touch with this camp so let's see and this this new one is like um it's a netflix movie uh it's a much kind of like it's not uh it's not like a gone girl or dragon tattoo it's a much kind of like it's like his roma like If Cuaron went from Gravity to Roma, this is him kind of going from Gone Girl to... Interesting. I assume you've seen it? yeah i might be one of the few people this this is a slight flex but it was such a strange i drove over to lucas um like skywalker ranch up in marin where he did the sound mixing and sat in the fucking like insane beautiful screen like theater lucas all by myself and i might be one of the only people who sees it in the theater because of covid wow yeah i saw the movie it's um

It's not like nasty the way that we associate with a lot of Fincher shit. Like it's kind of like, um, it's not like, it's not like a sweet movie, but it's kind of, um, anyway, it means a lot to him because his dad wrote the script. Uh, so I think that's part of why he was, um, like, all right, fuck it. I haven't done an interview, like a big profile in years, but I'll, I'll chop it up with Jonah for this one. Wow. Legends, blessing legends. You know what I mean? Jonah, earlier in the pod... Whoa, we're not done yet, Chris. Go ahead. Earlier in the pod, we were discussing Rage Against the Machine and Chris is a known... Oh yeah, I hate them. Oh no! Amazing. I was hoping you might be able to sway his mind in a different direction. Okay, well you got the best rapper of all time. Who's the best rapper of all time? Oh, my God. This podcast is fucking over. Jonah, see, I think this is a distinction we need to make with Rage Against the Machine. Jonah, you didn't grow up listening to hardcore punk, correct? Oh, are you an inside out guy? I mean, I'm not an inside-out guy, but I just think that Rage Against the Machine has a different connotation if you grew up listening to punk and hardcore because they were, at least for me, the radio version of what I listened to. Yes, I see what you're saying. So a lot of people liked it, but I always thought it was uncool. And now I can't listen to music like that at all because it's too aggressive for me. Yeah, well, it is. The thing is, though, it's so aggressive, and yet, I think there's like, A, there's like a Beastie Boys or like Led Zeppelin style thing where the music is so hard, but his voice is at this kind of like Ad-Rock or Robert Plant-y level that kind of like softens it. Like if he had like a real dude-ish voice, it would just be... I think Chris needs to learn the fact that his anger is a gift, doesn't he? Yeah, that's maybe something I should look into, but we also, we don't celebrate the Beastie Boys on this podcast either, actually. Okay. Huh. Okay. Okay. Not even on some hater shit. Like the music just doesn't interest me. I think as like cultural figures, they're incredible and like super important and have kind of informed a lot of stuff. But I would never listen to the Beastie Boys. Well, look, as we've established, you guys are talking to, you know, Staten Island Bread guests today. And I saw Rage Against the Machine and Wu-Tang on their like 1997 tour. I remember that. I remember that tour. I think I might have gone to that too at the Masquerade Music Park in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm almost.

outside like a a light outside venue a shed if you will yeah that's that so like no but i see what you're saying about like so my connotation is that right it's kind of like being a fan getting into and then just kind of like they build this bridge between them for that tour whereas yeah if i was coming from like hardcore who knows that would be a whole whole other frame of reference well de la roca does live in the neighborhood you know jason used to see him all the time oh no shit what part of town's he in glendale uh eagle rock Okay. You know, he used to be around Eagle Rock, Frogtown, the whole zone. Right. What kind of car does he drive? Or did he drive? I don't know, actually. I would always just see him walking. You know he's a walker. He'll walk on any street broad day. He'll just walk around. You know what would be cool? It would be very cool if De La Roche had a fucking Escalade with a driver. That would be so sick. I bet you he has some wild whips, though. I would imagine. I think there's a Rolling Stone story on Evil Empire or Battle of Los Angeles where he's driving something like a Ford Explorer. He's not selling out with a whip in that story. He doesn't have the Lambo truck yet, but that was a long time ago. It was. Jonah, thank you for joining us. Dude, it's so fun. Thank you for telling us a little bit about the background. I think that's important for people to understand that you're coming at this from a very professional angle. And you've been a writer for a long time. And I am a lover of celebrity profiles, so thank you for indulging me in all the dirt. It was a real treat, Jonah. I feel like with the exception of Raising Against the Machine, we got macrobiotic food. We all love it. We do. Yeah, yeah. We got 90s graffiti. Yeah. So many celebrity profiles. I feel like, you know, we got three out of four on this podcast. Cycling. Are you guys cycling heads? Shit. Jason is. Okay. Oh, shit. All right. We'll talk about caps and cycling off mic. For Jonah Part Deux, nothing but fat caps and fix your cycling. Let's go. And Jonah, tell them how to subscribe and where you are on the internet and stuff. Oh, yeah.

blackbirdspyplane.com. You can subscribe to the newsletter there. And it's Instagram slash blackbirdspyplane. That's it. Blackbirdspyplane spelled the way you... That wasn't taken before? No one had taken it. Although I do get tagged into... There's all these aeronautics aficionados on Instagram who'll be like, man, today's a legendary day in Cold War history. Lockheed Martin unveiled the B-45 or whatever. And they'll actually tag... They assume that I'm like... So all I'm saying is it could have been taken. There are people out there who fuck with it. All right, dude. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys. We will talk to you soon, bro. All right. Take it easy. Later, mate. Bye.