081. - Ryan Duffy

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, this is Jason. I'm recording this part of the podcast solo because I am solo away from Chris in Arizona. I was unable to record today's interview with him because I was out into the middle of nowhere hiking it up and with no service. Unfortunately, the way my vacay schedule worked out, no pod. You know, this is making me realize this is 80 episodes, 81 episodes we've done of this show, which is, you know, about a year and a half's worth of podcasts in less than, I don't know, in just like four or five months, which is great. So hopefully this is a rare occurrence where we're potting solo. But Chris, hopefully we'll be able to handle it. The guest is Ryan Duffy, an old friend of his, so they can just banter and have two guys talking about whatever bullshit they want to talk about. Ryan has done a lot of cool stuff in his life, including he was the guy who went to North Korea to play basketball with Dennis Rodman when he was hanging out with Kim Jong-un. So that alone, I'm very sad that I was not able to hear about. But, you know, I'm in Sedona. I'll give you Sedona scene report. Drove out here yesterday from L.A. It took about six and a half hours. It's hot as fuck. Sedona is a very, very cool place, actually. It looks like a fake city. There's no, you know, there's not really much going on here other than Republicans riding mountain bikes. And then... You know, the people who grew up here being okay with it. There is a place that we went to eat dinner at called Rotten Johnny's Pizzeria. And it sounds terrible, but it's probably one of the better restaurants in town, unfortunately. A fine wood-fired shrimp on the Caesar. If that's what your flavor is and you're going to be out here in Arizona. I think Arizona as a whole does suck dick for sure. But Sedona, I could see myself living here. We rented an Airbnb. Pretty big house. It's maybe like three or four bedrooms. Big yard, pool, huge kitchen. You know, big old master bathroom with a huge tub.

I'm in one of the offices and you could buy this house for under $300,000. Crazy ass view of the mountains. It's nice as fuck. So maybe I will retire here and become a mountain biker. Hopefully one day. We went to a hike today that I recommend called the hike to the crack at wet. beaver creek and that is a real name there is a place called wet beaver and there is a place called dry beaver here in sedona don't go to dry beaver there's not much to check out but the wet beaver is really cool it's a it's a seven mile hike total which is which is you know nothing to sneeze at and then it ends up in a watering hole but it was nice to go to a watering hole that isn't isn't like an la or a southern california watering hole where it's just like Fucked up stagnant water with, you know, undesirable animals and people wading in it and peeing and stuff. It was actually nice and clean and crisp. People diving. I never understand people who jump off of the big rocks 100 feet into the water. I see Diplo and his friends in the major lasers jumping off of buildings. And rocks that are 100 feet tall and doing backflips and landing. I don't really get any enjoyment out of that. It seems way too scary and dangerous. And you land and hurt your head or something. It's a bad idea. But it was nice to swim in a real swimming hole. I did not have water shoes or aqua socks. That was bad. And we did do some cool content creation that nobody will ever see. I did get to take some mushrooms out here. Mushrooms are great. I don't think I'm ever going to be able to take a full eighth, though, because there's too much going on in my mind to be able to handle that. But when I did do mushrooms when I was younger, I would only take a full eighth, and I would do things like drive my car around Orange County and pretend that my...

a honda accord was a tour bus tram and i would give my friends a tour of the city which looking back is one of the worst dumbest things you could ever do truly you know like i would i would be sitting at a red light and you it would be on fire and i drove a stick and it was fine but i can't do that now i would just jump off of a building or something probably which is which is a bummer I did visit the Sedona McDonald's. It's the only McDonald's that has teal blue arches to match the decor of Sedona. I was finally able to track down the Travis Scott burger, named after the rapper Travis Scott. I tried to get one last week outside of San Bernardino, and the quarter-pound lit meat patty was sold out. I tried to order the Travis Scott burger with a Filet-O-Fish patty instead of the Quarter Pounder patty. And they said, give me a minute, I have to check. And they came back about five minutes later and said they don't have a way in their system to handle that type of request. So it didn't work out, but it worked out seamlessly today. I hate McDonald's. It is bad food for bad people, but I had to do it in the name of content. Not too bad. The bun itself looks so perfect that it becomes not delicious looking or tasting. It just looks like a fake thing. It looks like the color, the golden brown has been airbrushed on it and the sesame seeds have been placed on one by one with a pair of tweezers. But the burger itself, not bad. The bacon on it was very crispy. It needed to be crispy and it delivered. The two slices of cheese was La Flame style and that did prove to be a winner. But the best part about it for me was the sweet kind of acrid tang of the pickle really brought the spicy barbecue to life. The one downside for it that doesn't make sense to me, living in LA, the In-N-Out double-double,

Or just an In-N-Out burger is sort of like the benchmark, the gold standard of what every other burger should be judged against. Because it's pretty perfect. And it costs like $3 or something like that. The Travis Scott burger, it was over $6 with tax and everything. I don't think McDonald's food should cost twice as much as In-N-Out food. That doesn't make any sense. I will never go back to McDonald's again. And neither should you, but I had to do it. I plan on writing a full, maybe 1,000-word detailed review of the Travis Scott Burger, you know, just as an emotional exercise. But we will be back to our normally scheduled pods. I'll be back in L.A. tomorrow, and then we'll do a one-on-one, you know, ready to go for Monday. Thank you guys all for listening, and also this episode, Chris. um with chris and ryan the first 10 minutes of their convo maybe like eight minutes or something got cut off because somebody wasn't recording correctly so i'm just gonna edit it and they're just gonna kind of hop in and start talking about cool shit uh so thank you guys for listening to me doing a solo ramble i'm gonna go take more mushrooms and lay around in the pool for the next few hours and then eat some pizza from ron johnny's bye Oh, what's going on, losers? It's Chris Black, half of the How Long Gone dynasty. My illustrious co-host, Big Slim, Big TJ Stretch, is actually lost in the desert in Sedona, finding himself. He might be on mushrooms, I don't even know. So today, it's just going to be me. It's going to be Chris Black, and I'm going to be talking to a dear friend of mine, a guy I've known for probably 20 years. Ryan Duffy. Ryan is a journalist, producer, and director of television. You might recognize him as the host of the original Vice TV show. Most remarkably, he played basketball in North Korea with Dennis Rodman, the Harlem Globetrotters, while Kim Jong-un looked on. He has a new show on Netflix called Home Game.

explores traditional sports from around the world um which is it's really interesting really fun to digest and kind of check out what other countries you know deem as sport um but Ryan, I've known each other since we were both very young and very into partying. So I'm sure he'll be able to regale you guys with some tales of stupidity. But he's forged a really nice career for himself in television, specifically in the sports arena, which is something that I obviously don't understand or care about. But I love to see my friends succeed. Without further ado. We'll give Ryan a call and pray for Jason. Hopefully, he finds some water. Hopefully, he finds himself. Hopefully, he can finally crack open that pesky third eye. 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. 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 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. Oh, this is huge for me personally. This episode of How I'm Gone is 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 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 howlong with the TaskRabbit app or at TaskRabbit.com. Why do we expect things from these corporations? Like, they don't care. Like, they don't care about anything except making money. That's what corporations are here for. Right. Like, that's just, that's fundamentally what that thing is. Now, if we don't think that that's... If there's a more radical line of thought that says that like Facebook has become so large and maybe Amazon, maybe Microsoft, maybe whoever, right? Some group of the big tech firms have become so large that they actually should be public utilities and we should think of them differently. Cool. I'm here for that. I'm not smart. I'm not smart enough to make that argument, but I'm here for it. I'm interested in it. But right now, that's not how they're built. They're built to reward their shareholders and grow their profit margins, and that's what they're out here doing. So when they let us down in the broader kind of moral arena, you're like, well, there's nothing to incentivize them to behave that way. No, I mean, it's also like celebrities, I think, this week are like, we're not using social media for 24 hours in protest. And it's like, guys, what the fuck do you think that's going to do? What on earth do you think that's going to do and prove to anyone? Because you're going to be on it. It's like fasting for 24 hours and then eating a pizza. That doesn't really do anything. It has to be a bigger change. You have to change your diet. You have to change your diet. You can't just do it for one day. But that's also like the fundamental. like you know lizard brain flaw I mean there's a lot of them in like our engineering as humans and you and I fucking know this better than most it's like People who've had our dalliances with substances, right? Is that like we are, from a neurological standpoint, we are engineered to want quick gratification and not to invest in long-term solutions or delayed gratification at all. So if someone says, hey, Facebook is doing this thing, but if you just bail for a day or, hey, if you post this particular image on Instagram for today, that'll demonstrate your support. You're just like, oh, great, quick fix. Immediate gratification. Good, good, good, go, right?

I sympathize with that, you know, like fighting the fight against immediate gratification is one of the themes of my life. Yeah, actually, you know, now that you put it that way, I think I understand. Yeah, I mean, no, I do. I mean, I think it's like a hive mind. Like, I want to be a part of this. And I do think it comes. The thing is, I do think it comes from a good place. Like, I don't think these people. Oh, yeah. You know, I don't I just don't think people are thinking critically because, you know, the world is him. and whatever they can do to place a band-aid on that they want to participate in, which I think that, especially when you have the kind of following these people have, that's respectable. I just think that the end game is not... Nothing's going to happen, is my point. It's a good idea in theory and in practice that the returns are minimal to none. Yeah, but you know what, dude? In a weird way, you almost just... I almost just came full circle on that. Well, you're for it now. You're doing it now. Well, in the great, great words of the immortal Ian McKay, at least I'm fucking trying. What the fuck have you done, right? That's true. I mean, no, that's a good point. Who am I to sit here and impugn people's motives? Like, yeah, even if it's short-sighted, even if it's a one-day thing. It's a thing. You're doing something and the alternative is nothing, which is what my lazy ass is sitting here doing, impugning the motives of people who are doing something. So, you know, fuck me. No, I think as a person who's parentally logged on, I form opinions that are – but I think that's where my – now that I don't get high, I think my instant gratification is giving opinions. You know what I mean? It's like I'm so quick to react, and I think sometimes that's good and sometimes it's bad. But with stuff like this, I'm immediately turned off to it. And it's like, Chris, you need to take a step back and think about why are you really – what's the real problem here? Like is this really doing anything but attempting to be good? Because otherwise there's no reason to think negatively about it. Right. Well, I'm – and I know that you're theoretically asking me questions. But if I may turn the tables for a moment. Theoretically, yes. Very theoretical. I am interested in your social media hierarchy.

And it is really funny that we're spending the first 20 minutes talking about social media, which is something I don't participate in. But it's because it's generational, right? In the most basic sense, in the sense that like TikTok obviously is for people who are 20 years younger than us. Facebook is for people who are about 10 years older than us. And that leaves us as people in our mid to late 30s kind of firmly in what I guess is like that. that first wave or whatever, right? We're the, we're the generation that remembers dial up, you know, we're the generation who had internet first, but we remember a time where it didn't exist. But for you in particular, it's fair to say that, that Twitter is your medium of choice, right? Yes, it is. Yes. That is, that is fair to say. And I have chosen that and I'm sticking with it. Right. And which, which is, it's also fair to say that that's a typical right generationally for us or, or am I wrong on that? I actually think it's more about – it's first age and generational and then second industry-wise. So I think as a member of the – as a card-carrying member of the New York media elite, I do think that our – I don't speak for all of us, but I speak for a lot of us when I say Twitter is the chosen medium. because it's more of a transference of ideas and opinions versus images. You know what I mean? Right. But I love – I mean, look, I use Instagram all fucking day. I'm on it all the time. I love it. But I don't feel like I'm able to – I don't express myself – I feel like I'm able to express myself more wholly and fully on Twitter. That is the medium that is best for me as a person. Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's right. It divides first and foremost generationally, but then within generations, it divides, I guess, by like professional inclination. Right. Yeah. But like, you know, I've I've also never used like Twitter for me has been actually like it's benefited me. uh positively like i've definitely gotten jobs and things like it's an aware it's the same reason that i write you know what i mean it's not about money it's about like i like to do it and it brings an awareness to myself and my work that i i control you know what i'm saying yeah it's brand building baby let's just if we want to really take it down to the studs it's just brand building you know what i mean

But it's like that in Instagram, it's like, I don't, you know, I'm not going to post a selfie like that. The way to make money on Instagram are things that I'm not, that don't appeal to me. So therefore I use it the way that I see fit. And that's, that's the thing that I has really, if we're, if we're being honest about it, has really kept me from Instagram. It's like, I don't, and I know this isn't really what Instagram is anymore, but in the early days where Instagram really was like. Here's the sunset, here's my breakfast plate, and here's me and Bob on a hike. The glory days is what we call that. I never felt comfortable with that, and I know that now people have figured out some pretty nuanced and sophisticated ways to use that platform. Do you not scroll it? I do scroll it, but pretty infrequently. I know that it's a pretty habitual scroll for a lot of people. I'll pick it up two or three times a day. Jason called me on the last episode the Golden State scroller, and I thought that was very, very clever. But, I mean, my screen time is absolutely through the fucking roof. Like, it's depressing. I've heard you say that before. What does that mean when you get, like, the alert at the end of the week? What are we talking about hours per day? Eight, nine hours. Wow. So, let's say that. Between six and nine probably is the usual range. between six and nine but is that because are you almost never in front of a larger screen like are you you know ryan i wish that was the case but you know but most days like at least since i've been in la like i would say the screen time is a little bit less because i'm just kind of out and about um on the computer itself um but yeah i think that like in the morning i use the computer for a couple hours like pretty heavily and then for the rest of the day it's phone You know, so whether it's social media, obviously email, like I'm on Slack for public announcement stuff. So like I'm using. It's not just social media, but Instagram is definitely 50% or something of that time when you look at the breakdown. Yeah. I mean, it is the easiest one when you're just waiting online. I don't know that we all do that anymore. I use it more. At this point, though, I just am accepting of that's who I am. You know what I mean? The way people beat themselves up and I need a digital detox, I got to get away from my phone. That's the other thing that I'm immune to.

I don't get like jealous of people's lives. Like if I see somebody on a vacation, I'm like good for them. If I see somebody, you know, doing an ad, I'm like good for them. I don't think about it. Like I want that to be me. Like that's not how I use it. So I think I'm lucky in that way because I do think it's really negative for a lot of people. I'm just not, for whatever reason, I'm just not one of those people. Yeah, and there is also this inclination that we all have, right, of, like, the pendulum swing in response to something is almost always an overcorrection, and that's true of, like, politics, cultural norms, or anything else. That's, like, our kind of back-to-the-hive-mind thing you were talking about before, but, like... it does get to this place too. And again, I'm going to end up taking a position that sounds like pro social media, despite my own, my own reluctance. It does get to a place where like, it's so easy to point out what's wrong with it. And it's so easy to point out like it's, it's ill effects on society, which are, which are real and true. Totally. Totally. But like, it is also revolutionary. Like far beyond. Yeah. And like far beyond just like, our own, you know, day to day enjoyment. But like the fact that we are all connected to each other at the fucking press of a button, the fact that I can really dial up almost any esoteric kernel of knowledge that mankind has ever accumulated over its entire civilized existence. I can just have, have a curiosity about it. And within six and a half seconds have the answer at my fingertips. That is insane. We do not fully process how fucking insane that is. No, it's too big. It's too big for our lizard brains. On a day-to-day, too, even thinking about this podcast, a lot of these guests, I would say most of this is done via social media. Whether it's a person I'm friends with or it's once removed or even if it's somebody that's a celebrity or whatever, you can get in touch with these people for better or worse. You know what I mean? So it's like on a day-to-day basis, I'm using it like everyone else for fun, but it does creep into like a...

true work thing beyond just like you know like awareness or brand building you know what i mean it's actually nuts and bolts like some work stuff um which again like that you know what's not to like yeah like that for me like what's not to like but i do think that um you know but it all it all i i agree with you i think that that it's so big at this point we're only focused on the negative virtues of it which are all real but i do think the positives especially like you know the way you're describing is almost like we put a man in space kind of level shit which i agree with like this is this is actually that crazy that we're all connected and that easily and you can talk to anyone blah blah blah that's very real and i do think that's like brushed aside because you know people are are sad they saw a hottie on vacation you know it's like I don't know. I don't think those things are equal or fair, but I do think that the – but like you said, it's a pendulum swinging. It's a huge backlash. When social media was first taking hold, we thought it was the greatest thing that ever happened to us. 10, 15 years later, it's the worst thing that ever happened to us. Of course. It's like cigarettes or soft drinks or cocaine. You know what I mean? It was a medical use. It was great for you. It's fine. It's no problem. And then we look into it a little harder. We're like, shit, actually, I think this is killing us. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. It's true. all of that it's all of that stuff like wrapped into right it's all of it it is of course neither black nor white but it's it's great but it is interesting too though i will say just the last the last thing on this is like you made the point earlier which is we are everyone thinks their own generation is so so important and and has such an interesting perspective it is interesting to me that we are um, the last generation or the generation, I guess, that really does have like the digital divide halfway through our lives in the sense that like, I firmly remember growing up, going to the library and needing to figure out the Dewey decimal system and like needing to get information in this like.

really fucking tactile, step-by-step kind of way. And then I remember dial-up. I remember getting AOL in high school and screen names and chat rooms and all that shit. And now I think we are... we've had it for long enough that like it has become, you know, we're not digital natives, quote unquote, but like it has become deeply ingrained in a way that we are super comfortable and kind of conversant in it. And that's, that is like a really interesting dual perspective to have. We're the only, I mean, I think that. TikTok is the ultimate divide of that. Do you have TikTok? Snapchat too. I just didn't care about those. They just didn't hit for me. Don't matter. TikTok to me feels deeply generational. If you're 18, that's all you care about. That's all you use. Instagram is for your parents. It's the same kind of thing as what Facebook became. i'm curious about tiktok too i'm not gonna i'm not gonna i'm curious about it from a fucking money-making standpoint because it's like and it's all obviously it's all wrapped up in the chinese you know it's such a big political story now too um but it's it's i mean i you know people send me videos i watch videos that i'm sent or i see other places and it's fucking funny but it reminds me more of vine where it's like i never used vine but i would look at like i would see enough vine in my life where i felt like i understood it i think tiktok is i think tiktok is a little more complicated than that. And I think that, I mean, look, the New York Times has a technology reporter taylor lorenz who covers tiktok like exhaustively yeah that big you know it's that she's great by the way i don't know she's no dude she's she's gonna come on the show but she's like yeah i mean dude she's it's it's like to me i'm like this is so fucking dorky and it's all these nerds but it's also like this is a multi-million dollar business it's youth culture it's sex it's you know it's kind of everything it's everyone yeah and i think that but those people aren't famous to me the same way like youtubers aren't famous to me right

right so it's like you can tell me they have x amount of followers and show me a picture of them and they're great looking and in great shape but i still am like i don't know who the fuck this guy is yeah he looks like any he looks like any other fucking west side rich kid in la that has an audi you know what i mean yeah it doesn't nothing nothing changes for me but i do think that that that to me is the ultimate divide, that particular program. And maybe Snapchat was the precursor to that. Well, that's the other thing too, right? Is I almost feel like I don't have to. I'm curious about TikTok, but I feel like I don't have to really invest in understanding it. Ultimately, it's going to get steamrolled by reels or whatever. The imposter clone that Zuck will build and just roll over whatever else while TikTok itself becomes a political football. Because I think that's one of the other funny accusations that we throw at these social media companies, which again are true, but are just... a little bit off base from like what they are which is like oh there's not there's there's not a lot of innovation in in silicon valley anymore there's not a lot of innovation at facebook um they're just they're just um you know copying other people's products and businesses and rolling out Yeah, they are. And usually, usually it's the second guy in the door who makes all the money. And the first guy, you know, lays a bunch of ground. And I'm not talking about tech, I'm talking about anything, right? Like, it usually pays to be second or third. Because the pioneers are out there kind of, you know, breaking new ground or whatever. And that's fantastic. But they're usually out ahead of the culture. And then by the time kind of, you know, the second wave, second guy in the door comes, there's financing that comes with it. So ultimately, I feel like I'll end up engaging in whatever it is that makes TikTok so great in the form of, I think it's called Reels, right? Isn't that the Instagram version? That is the Instagram, yeah. I mean, I think that that is, I mean, I think it's already a failure. You know what I mean? But like, I don't, that is,

what are they going to do you know i mean but but instagram did that to snapchat they ate their lunch you know what i mean so it's like these guys they're yeah innovating isn't the point anymore i think for some of them i think just getting to market with something strong is the point which yeah i you know i i see that totally Um, but I did want to talk about getting into TV because I think you've had a, you know, I think a lot of people would love to get into TV, um, Hollywood. Um, but I think your path, I mean, that was never your plan. So I think falling into it is even more interesting. Um, yeah. And, and funny to go, funny to go from talking about social media, uh, the content wave of the future to TV, which we've all, we've all been saying and reading, uh, and, and being assured that TV. was dying for the last, what, 20 years, and it is not dead. It just takes new shapes and forms. It's not going anywhere. But, yeah, TV is a... And I think it just means a different thing now, right? I think people now are very comfortable to use TV as the catch-all term to describe not just television, but television, broadcast, cable, the way we traditionally thought of it, as well as... ott streaming etc all these things it basically just means like longer form video content um that's true tv tv really does mean longer form video content that's it that's really it um but yeah yeah man i i uh i i did kind of stumble into it in the sense that like it was you know i i I started at Vice way back when I was 19, I guess. And that was like, I mean, you know this well. This is where we met. But it was a print magazine once a month. barely a print magazine once a month uh and there were you know it was nine or ten people shared office with triple five soul arguments about like no i need this closet for you know my my denim versus like my boxes of print magazines and that was like that was the lay of the land and i was an intern i was at nyu at the time and i was 19 and you know fast forward i i stuck around vice throughout my

college career and by the time I graduated they were ready to hire me and I came on board full time and was just kind of plugging holes right in the way that like You do when you don't know how to do anything particularly well. You're just like the blunt force object at 22 years old where they're like, OK, you're in charge of distributing magazines and selling some ads to record labels and writing some music reviews and sweeping up the floors because the front door is broken. And at that time, there were still actually prostitutes and johns in Williamsburg along that can't have truck route. And you need to clean out the use. condoms that are there every month what a different what a different time you know as a as a brooklyn hater even i'm wistful for that era but yes yes continue continue but so basically i it's just a small enough company at that point in time that like everyone kind of does everything and a couple years into my my tenure of doing all of those things and a few others that fell onto my lap it was like all right we think that there's an opportunity here to make some video for the internet because that's going to be the new thing now that, you know, the distribution pipes of the internet are such that we can actually make and do this and should be video. Yeah, let's do it. And it was, it wasn't any, I'd love to say that it was like either. foresight or skill that I was like I could like see around the corner and go like hey I think this is internet on you know video on the internet it's gonna be pretty big or that I was pretty really particularly good at it it was neither I think it was like There were 20 of us at the time, and I raised my hand faster than the fucking guy behind me. Yes, yes, yes. This was the VBS.TV era. Yes, the VBS, Vice Broadcasting System.TV, which was the first Vice. There was a Vice Guide to Travel, which was a DVD. VBS was kind of born out of that. It was a joint venture with Viacom where they gave the company a couple bucks to kind of experiment in online video.

that VBS was, for all its successes and failures, the eventual launch of a pretty big YouTube channel, the eventual launch of Ice.com, the eventual show on MTV, which came out of that initial joint partnership around VBS, and then the MTV show turned into the HBO show and all that stuff. I kind of hung around for all those things and was doing all of them, mostly in the beginning as kind of an on-camera correspondent. But in terms of actually taking what was at that time kind of nights and weekends, because I was still kind of, I still had like a day job at Vice. I still had a desk job. And then we would kind of do this, you know, in a moonlighting capacity. Whereas now, you know. fast forward 20 years and I sit out here in LA, I've been out of vice for seven or eight years at this point. And TV is my job and it's my job in a way that is, um, much more like much more holistic. Cause what I eventually figured out about like the on camera stuff is like, it's cool and it's fun. And I still do some of it, um, for the right projects, but it's also pretty limiting in the sense that like, The more you know about television, the more you realize that, like, that job usually, and there are exceptions, usually doesn't have a lot of say-so. Like, you're kind of... Sure, you show up and do what you're told to an extent. Pretty much, you know? And, like... I'm sure there are a lot of on-air correspondents who are deeply involved in the shaping of the stories they're reporting on and the like. For me, balancing a few other jobs there and whatever, I never felt like I was getting in early enough. In the process, yeah. I was showing up to help execute other people's ideas, which at the age of 25 is probably all you should be doing. But when you start to have some ideas of your own, you start to go, well, how does this sausage actually get made? So now I'm kind of...

like to think i can do a few different things i produce some shows i direct some shows i still do do i still do do i still do the uh the on-air correspondent things here and there but basically i just like i tried to get good enough not great at any of them but good enough at like the three to four jobs that seemed interesting to just say yes to whatever I wanted to do and fit in there in a way that whatever the project demanded, you know? Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, you and I have been friends for a very long time. I know you pretty well. The thing that we don't relate on is sports. I can give a shit. And it's not like you talked about all the time with me or anything over the years, but I do think that, I mean, I think that at least what I remember, a big coming out for you is when you played the basketball game in North Korea. Yeah. You know, on, on, and that was a, and Kim Jong-un was there and it was, and Dennis Rodman was there and the whole, the Harlem Globetrotters, this whole thing. It was, that was like a big, big story. And you were physically playing basketball, which I think, I think is, is, you know, cause I, I just, I think that's like when I, I just did this underwater workout with these like Marines for GQ. And they said to me, no one ever does the workout with us. They want to write about it and talk about it, but no one ever does it with us. You know what I mean? And I think that when you were doing that, that felt very participatory in like a George Plimpton way, but it was a little more extreme because of obviously the situation, the timing. But I do think that the sport thing, that's where it, at least for me, it starts in some way. Because now that's mostly what you focus on. Yeah, a lot of my projects now, not all of them, but a lot of my projects now are... are in sports and that's funny too like unscripted sports so sports documentaries and sports series I just did this show for Netflix called Home Game which is like sports cultures around the world a little bit of a nod to like the wide world of sports on ABC in the 70s that kind of stuff which is funny in and of itself right because on one hand like yes sports is I am like a deep

deep, somewhat maniacal sports fan. Like, I've scheduled my day today around a Boston Celtics playoff game, and I mean that really seriously. Like, I have literally in the calendar a block. And it's like no call. I get back on the phone afterwards, and I've got work I'll do afterwards. You're a great guy. You're a hard worker. I get back on the phone after I spend three hours watching a basketball game in the middle of the day. Well, dude, the middle of the day thing is – I've been out in L.A. now for – three years, pretty much exactly. I still can't figure out. Tip-off time for my entire life for basketball games was 7.30 or 8 o'clock, and now it's rolling in here at 4.30. I'm waking up on Sundays, and NFL kickoff is at 10 a.m., and I'm trying to have my coffee. That is still fucking me up. I really feel for you. I really feel for you. People talk about champagne problems or first-world problems. This is a more obnoxious version. I don't even know what the right term is. nobody enjoyed me saying that. But anyway, that is a problem I'm dealing with in my life. But anyway, sports, yes, because I deeply love it, and I have since I was a little kid, has become a big focus of what I do. But it also is, you know, that I'm sure you feel this in some ways, that kind of self-perpetuation machine. that you get when you're, you know, at this point, we're all in our, our mid thirties, our friend group, you know, we've been doing whatever it is that we've chosen to do for, you know, 10, 15 years, depending on how long it took to figure out. And in some ways you just, you just end up doing more of what the last thing you did was. And I'm not saying I don't like doing the sports stuff. I really do. But like, It becomes hard to fight against the tide because the opportunities become self-selecting in a way. Someone watches your last show and goes, oh, okay, this is the sports guy. Great. Here's my idea for the sports thing. Well, I think in this case, too, I think that genre has exploded. The sports doc thing, like I said, as a person who doesn't give a fuck about sports, the amount of ESPN 30 for 30 or E60 documentaries I've watched is a high number. So I do think the appetite is there now, too. That's a great point.

that's the other part that like filters into how much sports stuff i've done of late which is like don't look a gift horse in the mouth right like it is it is sports sports docs are at the intersection of two really powerful forces one of which is just the boom of documentaries um in large part credit due to netflix over the last say 10 years right where all of a sudden docs have gone from like this weird little silo on pbs and like you know the ken burns world of um yeah you know to to what they are today which is unrecognizable right and and massive cultural phenomenons that in in many ways outpace scripted content so that's one trend line and then that's getting married to something that's less of a trend line and more a mainstay which is unending popularity of sports which you you you sit outside of um i'm not immune though i i notice i mean the way that the country reacted when it was taken away from them was literally like it was more important than air breathing Yeah, I do recognize the importance. Some might say over importance, but I'll leave that to them. Oh, for sure. Look, I am even I'm the same lunatic who blocked out my day for a playoff game. And even I know it's absurd. It is completely and completely and totally absurd. But but it's also so. So I think one of the things from a business standpoint that's happened is like that. That never-ending popularity, that growing popularity, and look, there's a lot of reasons for it. As television becomes less nationalized, right, less impacted by borders, when you do have streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, et cetera, international markets become more important to your business. That involves a lot of translation, and a lot of those companies are really good at it, but it also involves just identifying things that transcends borders.

borders and that's why you see stuff like you know bourdain rest in peace food music sports these these universal languages become increasingly important so then you have live rights like the actual games themselves yeah yeah become so fucking expensive like the amount of money that is spent on the contract to air 162 baseball games a sport that nobody under the age of 62 gives a flying fuck about and a product a television product that is terrible right? It is a terrible television product. Oh my God. It's awful. And you can't, it's, it's hard. It's not even easy to program because the games have no structure. Like a soccer game, at least you go, okay, two 45 minute half. They add on level of injury time. Why do you block out about three hours? It just goes. It could be two hours long. It could be five and a half hours long and you have to figure out how to program your television network around it. It's so fucking dumb, but it remains this unbelievable cash cow. To such a degree, because it's so popular, and it's one of the few things that people actually tune in to live television for anymore, award shows and specials and news and sports, right? But because those have become so expensive, kind of what I do, I don't do that, but what I do kind of rides the coattails of that in the sense that people want sports on their network. but they cannot participate in the billions and billions and billions of dollars that goes into locking up the live rights. So that's where I kind of weasel in the door. I never thought about that. I just thought sports were popular, but I agree. but this is a symptom of that basically like it's yeah this is the downstream effect yeah but it's so expensive to air real sports that they have to have programming that that is is well i mean arguably it that's interesting too because it's more appealing to a wider swath of people if in my mind that's the hope right is that like even if you don't watch the game

If we do some, you know, whether it's, you know, it's called like the sports shoulder program or sports adjacent or, you know, just sports doc generally. If we do that well enough and it becomes this character led thing, which basically everything does at the end of the day, then who cares what the, you don't need to be invested in what color t-shirt the guy puts on after the fact and whether or not he scores 20 points or two points. Like it's kind of neither here nor there if you become invested in kind of the character depth. drama which is what most of the stuff for dance too yeah i mean that's that's the only i mean you know like i i could i would watch a third lance armstrong documentary at this point you know what i mean it's like i just that that that to me is a great example of like cycling on tv i would never in one million years turn that on there's no fucking way but he's such a month he's such a monster that i can't get enough you know i'm very pro doping too which is a whole nother podcast i think but i'm ready to let these guys go wild oh you know i I kind of feel that way too. I actually wanted to ask you about this. And I felt that way that I know less about the... I mean, I watched Icarus along with everyone else, and it's an absolutely stunning documentary. I know less about cycling, so when I think about doping and performance enhancing, my reference is Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa, which let me pause there. Okay, you know who those people are. Yeah, of course. I mean, I played sports growing up. I know, I know. But those guys – I mean those guys were also the biggest star. But also, I mean this goes to tennis too, like which is the only sport I play or care about. And it's like, you know, like Rafael Nadal definitely is on something. It's an understood, but he's too big of a star, so they're going to let it rock. It's just like these guys – it's just too crazy. Their bodies are too – there's just only so much you can do naturally. Well, and that's the thing, right? Because I think – you and I I don't think have talked about this, but it sounds like we may have the same perspective on it, which is like –

Okay, and? Yeah. Kobe Bryant used to get a lot of shit for suspicion around a procedure he had in Germany. And I can't remember the particulars, but it was like blood platelet removal. It was essentially like making your legs younger, right? Yeah. Some voodoo or other. And I was kind of like, okay, but... The idea here is that we all love Kobe. The NBA is a better product when he's playing. And all he's doing is just trying to elongate the window that he's able to do that. So why are we mad? Everybody wins. Now, I agree. I mean, I think there are some people that really care about fairness. But at the top of the pyramid in sports, from my understanding, is money. So you need your stars. And it's the same thing with Nadal. It's like, look. like he's a superstar we can't have we can't ban him from a year of majors like that's just not on the that that's not right for us to do so you know we're gonna let it rock and whether whether it's 100 confirmed or it's like we're pretty sure like it doesn't really matter we're just gonna look the other way and this goes back to i think what we were saying about like facebook and all this stuff is which is like at the end of the day and i i I'm taking this like real hard pro capitalism stance on this podcast, which is, I did not expect to take, but it just, I'm not saying whether this is a good or a bad thing. I'm just saying it is the thing. The NBA is a business. Facebook is a business. The NBA is a business. Um, the world tennis association is that, I don't even know if that's the government. No, it's, it's all, it's all. Yeah. I mean, these guys and it's, it's, it's not all, it's also like, a staggering business you know what i mean it's staggering yes and i think the nfl is the one that gets the most you know what i mean like that to me is is the most like thing you know the one that's talked about the most as far as it's it's kind of um i don't know if unfairness is the word but just like discrepant i don't know it just seems like that governing body and that system is talked about more than any other a disaster yeah because because it's so bad

it's so bad and and it's it's it's a few different things they just they they cannot get out of their own way right like they are first off it's the sport itself which is you know the most violent of the yeah i don't i i do you do you think it'll go away in our lifetime no i just i am my same my my one of my underlying beliefs about the world um is momentum is a motherfucker Totally. And it just, it is. And it explains a lot more about our culture than we'd like to think. Because it's so simplistic. But I just, football is, like, the most popular sport in America is football. Do you know what the second most popular sport in America is? I actually don't. College football. Damn, that's fucked up. Right. So when you think about and that includes like the NBA, which has had an unbelievably great last decade, even two decades. Right. You can look at the whole, you know, you can trace it back to Jordan and say that 30 year run or whatever. The NBA has done great. You know, soccer has expanded. The UFC. Soccer is never going to happen in this country. I stand by this. It'll never happen. It'll never happen. And I think football will continue to happen because there are a lot of parents who just don't give a fuck. It's a paycheck, you know what I mean? I think that's some of the issues, obviously, is who that benefits and who it doesn't benefit. I think the argument about paying college, that stuff actually interests me. The college athlete shit, those guys should be getting paid if you're making money off of them. 100%. It's insane that they're not paid. That's very interesting to me. The business side of it, it's similar to Hollywood for me, though. I don't even care about the product sometimes. I want to hear about the deal and the agent and the distribution and all of that stuff. That appeals to me in the same way that it does with sports, whether you know the players or not. But I do think that the documentary side, the stuff that you're doing and what you're working on is like the most appealing to the biggest group of people, which I feel like is a good sign.

Yeah, it's the accessible, you know, the gut check it with my mom who, you know, has never sat down to watch a game with me, but like will. sit down and watch most of the shows that i end up making because at the end of the day you don't really need to be the sports fan to watch you know yeah no and that's what i think like streaming has really done too is given a place a place for that stuff to live yeah now now what is what is out right now that people can watch oh a lot of stuff is in the works you know it's like the the covid production freeze did everything just stop for you is that how it works yeah pretty much uh it's thawing now um which is which is good i think i mean we'll see um and it's coming back like i have a shoot on the 28th which is in 11 days which is like the first the first real we've like skirted by and done a couple little low-key things this is the first like full-on you know full crew you know what is this outside is inside what's the vibe we're gonna do the bulk of it outside and you travel as few people as possible and like in this i won't drag you into the weeds of this but like this is a scenario this is an interview scenario where any other time prior to this the the interview subject is is up in washington state and we would go okay so we'll come up to you and we want to do this you know in a location that's um comfortable for you and kind of true to you and a cool backdrop so we'll come up there a day a couple days early scouted out and then you know we'll bring the whole crew we'll pick up a couple locals and we'll just sit down with you and come back no no no no now the the goal is to travel as few people as humanly possible so we have to bring The subject down here, he has to quarantine for a short amount of time. Everyone has to be tested. There's COVID monitors on the set. And it's just, it's interesting. I'm looking to become a COVID monitor. I think this is a good career path for me. Dude, I mean, it is. I feel like it's a must-have. It pays pretty well, and you don't have to do much. I don't know what they actually do. I think it's just literally someone who's like,

walking around safety monitor style from high school going like, Hey, get that mask up around your nose. And Hey, do you need to be standing three feet from him to have this conversation? That's exactly what, that's exactly what it is. It's literally the feds. It's dark. So you're flying him down and you're doing it in whatever location you are in and it's safe. Right. So we'll do all that and there's a bunch of red tape and all that stuff, which is boring. And I should be grateful to be working again because I haven't in quite some time. I think I like a lot of people. turned you know everything shut down in in march and i think everyone who works in this industry went oh okay i'll you know i'll do development i think that the the running feeling for a lot of people is like you get so busy with production that you you lag on your development and you don't have the next idea ready to go when your existing show ends so i think I and a lot of people went, okay, great. I'm going to just work on development and rights acquisitions and decks and sizzle reels and all this shit. Three months, four months in, you're like, okay. Exactly. I have developed every bad idea I've ever had. And now I want to start shooting again. So I'm happy to have it back. But there's stuff out there that came out right before the lockdown. That show Home Game I mentioned is eight episodes on Netflix, sports cultures around the world, kind of unknown local games and the interesting people and places that you meet when you go to look at them. And then I've been directing a few things here and there. This is a football doc that I'm directing next week. There's a Fox Sports documentary on a guy named Rick Ankeel. And that's a good example, by the way, the Rick Ankeel thing of like, It is a straight down the middle to use a sports metaphor to talk about sports story of a major league baseball pitcher. But you can do it in a way where the outcome of the game is kind of neither here nor there. And you end up telling the story. Rick had this kind of, you know, mental block, basically, where he had something called the yips, which basically just means like.

He's a pitcher who forgot how to pitch on a real basic level. Shit, that's crazy. It's fucked up, dude. I'll send you the link. It's a wild story. But, like, if you do that well enough, and it happened in a big stage, it happened in a playoff game, so, like, sports fans know that. Oh, it happened live. Oh, dude, it happened live, and it's tough to watch. He's 23. Yeah. That's so interesting. 23 years old, or maybe even 22. World at his fingertips. Like... fire-throwing rookie phenom. Holy shit, Rick Ankeel, he's the future of baseball, out there in a playoff game, and all of a sudden, he's just whipping balls around the stadium. They're just going everywhere but to home plate. And people are like, what the actual fuck's going on? And that was it. It just broke him. Like, it wasn't... An injury? It wasn't, yeah. So anyway, we did an hour-long talk about Rick last year for Fox that, you know, I think even though that is a story that happened on the mound in a stadium in a very traditional kind of sports ecosystem, I think at the end of the day, it's a story about like, oh shit, this thing that I trained to do for my whole life, I'm now not able to do, and how do I pivot my life around that? There's a lot of applications to that. No, totally, totally. I think for someone like me, that stuff appeals to me, so I know it appeals to a lot of others. I feel like a lot of people in my life like sports, which I really tried to avoid growing up at an insane pace. I think as we get older, we just, you know, you lose the angst and you're okay with liking football. Yeah. Yeah. That's the other thing too, is like that harsh dividing line we all drew in high school where it's like, no, no, no. I listen. I can't watch sports. I listen to punk rock music. Exactly. I know. I know. I know that was, but hold on before. I know we're probably wrapping up. I'm actually curious about your, cause you're, you're now, it seems full on into tennis, but I also believe from listening to some episodes, which is the way, but we've been friends for two decades and I know more about your life from listening to your fucking podcast.

But it sounds like you're dealing with some injuries, and I'm curious how you're maintaining. I'm in physical therapy now, and I've got a whole bunch of shit. Because you're a big runner. I mean, you're doing serious, and that's all you're doing right now, correct? Well, I mean, it's the pandemic problem I think a lot of people are having, which is I was always running a lot, but I was mixing in. soul cycle and some boxing and some tennis and whatever and then all those things close so all i do is put on shoes and go run outside my house and beat up my old hips and knees so what are you doing this story well i have pivoted to the peloton to be honest with you did you buy a peloton no so where i'm staying in la has two Um, and so I'm able to, you know, you basically, there's a gym here and the residents like book it out. So they have an hour to themselves. So basically I'm seeing the trainer three days a week and doing that stuff. And then the other days I'm, I'm doing the Peloton for an hour or 45 minutes and then doing some weights on the Peloton and then playing tennis. So it's been, honestly, I was a Peloton. I made fun of the Peloton relentlessly. when it came out i said that was that was exercise for fat rich guys which i still think which i still think i still think it can be you know what i mean i still think it can be but i do think they are poised because you know they're they're releasing all this stuff um you know like they just announced a lower price bike they're doing a different machine that's more cross you know treadmill blah blah blah i i think that i i do think the gym is is going to i don't think it's obsolete but i think if i had the room My friends Jake and Adrian basically turned their guest room into a gym over this period. They have a Peloton. They got a full set of kettlebells. They've got a Bosu ball, and it's great. You know what I mean? It's fully what you need. I just like to leave the house. That's my problem. Yeah, it's funny. That's what kept me from, I have a bunch of friends who got Pelotons early on, even pre-pandemic, and were like, oh yeah, this is the future, whatever. And my thing was a little bit like, especially out here, I might feel differently if I were still in New York, but especially in LA, I feel like I spend a lot of time in my house or in my car or by myself and like Equinox and SoulCycle were like one of the few things I could reliably count on to like...

bump into another fucking human and have a five minute conversation i mean we've ran into each other at berries and soul cycling yeah but i'm actually i got the offer from berries to come try their new their new beverly center parking garage class so we're gonna go on saturday but and i'll let you know because i i think it's like the full class because you don't have to have a mask on they brought the treadmills out the whole thing oh that's cool but yeah the kettlebell shit i did that i did all the stuff you were supposed to do during this the only thing that's worked for me is the trainer that's the only thing that has felt like inspiring and like i'm doing something new and he's teaching me all this different shit that and that to me is worth every penny like it's it's it's money well spent versus you know a gym membership or whatever um since we can't do that anyway yeah and didn't you recently wasn't there an injury you were rehabbing yeah i from from that's why i'm using the peloton is because i fucking i got those crazy nike four percents they fucked my ankle up dude i'm having some real problems too so i i'm doing physical therapy and i'm not totally thrilled i also like i mean the whole list of shit i'm trying to do is embarrassing i got like a knee and hip pillow that goes between my old clunky ass legs but you were doing acupuncture right can you can you talk to me about that a little dude Um, yes, it's, it's a place here in LA called, uh, you family acupuncture. It's on Beverly. Um, and I went there years ago and as I'm back problems and it was just really great for me. So I went back and it's, I mean, basically it's the full thing where they do the, the, um, fascial scraping, you know what I mean? On the muscle. And they, they also do cupping. They do acupuncture. So it's, and it's so, dude, it's 85 bucks. You know what I mean? It's so affordable. And more than that for this physical therapy, that's just supervised stretching. i'm i'm under the i am a full acupuncture cupping like i i subscribe to all of it like that it's always worked for me it's affordable it's it's like non-invasive i don't know i've always been fine with that and maybe i'm lucky because i haven't had like real real injuries that would require surgery or something but for stuff that's just kind of like annoying you know what i mean and like a problem that that is is what i've found to work um and i i highly recommend it and i think i think that like

I don't know. Again, it's always worked from my back to my calves to my ankle. It's just people use it for skin, for fertility. There's so many uses for it. I just really back it. I would give it a try. I've actually never gone to physical therapy. I've never done that. So it's kind of like. Yeah, it's leaving me a little cold. I've never really done it, and it just hit a point in these last few months with the amount of running that my hip was just kind of, I felt like I needed to do something less. Running is the worst fucking thing for you, but nothing feels better. That's the fucking problem. It's 100% understood to be the worst thing for you, and it's absolutely the best thing feeling-wise for me. The only other thing I'm getting that kind of pleasure from right now is advancing with these rings that I'm using. So I'm hanging upside down and doing all this shit. I'm doing handstands and stuff I never thought I could do before, but that's a different feeling than just running for an hour and feeling good when you finish. I mean, that's it, right? Is it the worst thing you can do physically? and the best thing you can do mentally and it's so cruel that it exists on that fucking i don't know what what shoes you wear i alternate i was talking about you know ben rayner right ben rayner ben rayner just certified coach as of a couple days ago dude ben rayner is by the way like i the reason i was talking to him is because i don't know if you fuck with strava or you follow ben everybody loves everybody loves strava i don't use that but everybody loves it So I'm out there clocking maybe, you know, 30 miles a week, 35 miles a week, feeling pretty good about that. And feeling it, right? Going like, wow, if I ran 37 miles, my hip would fall out of the fucking socket. And then I'll just cruise over to Ben Rayner profile and my guys at like 94 miles a week. like it's crazy an output that i don't and he's a dad he's a he's a working photographer like i literally don't understand the mechanics of it let alone i've i've said this to him he because when i was running a lot early pandemic in montreal he was helping me a lot like yeah here's you should do monday here's you should wednesday here's friday

And it was a pretty light touch. But by the end, I was running the furthest and fastest I'd ever run in my life. Yeah, dude, he's a fucking guru at it. So back to your question, I had asked him about shoes and asked him about everything. He's obviously unlocked it. But he said that one of the important things that I had not been doing, but now I am, is alternating shoes. Yes, yes, yes. I've heard this from him and others. Yeah. So now I've got Nike flyknits. of the react flyknits that I wear and then I've got this broader base shoe that's a Saucony I never know how to say that Saucony Saucony either one I think it's fine Saucony you know we're not we're not sticklers on this podcast I appreciate that you know we let things slide sometimes so I go back and forth between some Saucony's and some Nike's and I I don't know I guess it's helping who knows what's a placebo and what's actually helping but I'm telling myself that it's going to improve i need i need to i mean i i got rid of the i sent the four percents back to nike and made them give me a refund which i never do i was just so upset because they look so fucking cool you know i love the way they look but i'm i'm i'm interested i mean i i gotta my ankle's feeling pretty good now it's been like a month i'm gonna start easing back into it i think but i do this this old age shit really ain't for me bro it's really you know it's taking a toll and luckily you know luckily our problems are small and minimal, but, uh, you do feel it now. I definitely feel it differently than I used to. It's that, that's the other thing is like, there's the actual pain. There's the actual discomfort that comes from the hip and whatever. And then there's what we all know is the bigger issue, which is this is, this is the age slapping us. We can wear whatever cool t-shirts we want and work in whatever young industries we want. we're fooling no one and we're sure as shit not fooling our skeletons which are collapsing around us yes the world collapses my skeleton likes to match um man all right well it's been really good to have you ryan uh good to catch up and um people can catch uh catch your stuff on netflix yeah

Home Game on Netflix, a couple other shows coming out later this fall. Don't follow him on social media. No! You won't find out anything about it. That is the one time I'll be on social media. I'll be on the Ryan Duffy Instagram posting about the new shows this fall. We love Hollywood, Ryan. Thank you for joining us, and I will talk to you soon. Great to talk to you, bud. Later, bro. Later.