693. - Jay McInerney

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. How long gone? A rare Monday recording because of some scheduling. What time did you get home last night? Did you call it? after i did or did you keep it going um i kept it going a little bit not that long maybe another hour but i just went home i gotta say that the disney party which felt like a very, very high-end wedding reception in a good way, honestly. You know what I mean? If people spent Disney-level money on wedding receptions, then I would go to more weddings. So you're saying you like elaborate, fancy weddings. I mean, they had all the bases covered that I really needed except for music, but you know. The food stations were... Sublime. Well, the music is what made it. The music was so bad that it made it really feel like a wedding reception. You know what I mean? And the fact that Questlove was there, but not even DJing or playing bongos felt like a miss. But I don't know whose job that is, but it's not mine. I think Questlove's job there was to... You don't watch The Simpsons, but when Homer sees a donut, he...

kind of wiggles his fingers and it don't mind if I do sort of energy. I'm familiar with that. Yeah, I figured you would be now. And I think Questy possesses some of that same energy. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah, he was wearing a dashiki. It was an interesting crowd to say the least. Yeah, I thought it was Io's dad, but it was just Questlove because they're wearing a similar kind of... Io's dad looked a little less... Like he was trying, you know what I mean? In a good way. Whereas Questlove was like, I'm like, where do you get the murdered out Issey Miyake? It was definitely some designer shit. That's the problem. Where'd you get the murdered out Agnes B cloak? Cloak. It was cloak-ish actually. That's true. It was very, it was quite cloak-ish. Agnes XL. Yeah, I don't think Agnes has XL. She's French. She doesn't believe in that. She hates fat people. Agnes, yeah. I've seen Carolyn try on the cardigan in her size and it ain't, no. her size you know what i mean those cardigans those cardigans are all extra small agnes b walked so brandy melville could run in the in that department in the actual what department is that exactly is it is it fat shaming is that how it's pronounced in french i was gonna say cardigan um i don't know if you i don't know if you have to take it there but yeah i think i went a different direction than what you did but yeah the food that pizza was really hitting the spot because i i that delicious uh sashimi that carolyn had for us after we finished i loved but it wasn't i it that doesn't fill me up unfortunately well yeah going out i mean i'm sure we'll talk to our guests about this today because it's a topic that i consider and i base most of my life decisions around which is what i'm gonna eat before i get hung over and what i'm gonna eat after i get hung over and those are yeah they're two very important things that need to you know it's a yin and a yang they need to exist you can't have one without the other and And sashimi before is the move. Sushi before. You can't get anything better than that for a base when you're going to punish your organs with alcohol and drugs. See, I don't like saying, you know, I just don't like saying base. It's like when people call, like, fish or chicken protein. Like, I really hate, oh, what protein? Don't, it just makes it feel.

bad to me. Am I crazy? You're not crazy. I know the direction that you're heading down but I want you to dig deeper into that big brain of yours and use a different descriptor word other than bad. I would say unappealing. It makes it sound like it's more functional than it is satisfying. It's a clinical and medical term and not one that makes you sort of lick your chops in flavor anticipation. There's no chop licking when someone says, which protein would you like? It sounds like you're at the doctor's office. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I wonder if there's any... Any foodies who use it in terms of ejaculate. You know what I mean? That's possible. Like, yo, I'm about to protein. Something like that. There's protein all over the sheet. I'm fixing to protein is pretty good. Yeah, I'm fixing to protein is good. And then as soon as those awful childish words left my lips, I just thought of. 24 hours or you know whatever nine hours ago when we did our last podcast and i gave a shout out to my brother's girlfriend's mom um and so i know that she's listening to this right now and i do apologize for that but luckily she's a good sport she knows we're all adults and yeah i make a joke about ejaculate that's okay that's how that's how we all got here in the first place am i right brother man but i do think that that pizza what was the pizza place called i'd never had it before Apollonia. Apollonia. It was delicious. I was really pleased with that being there. And the hand roll was very good too. And the fucked up cookie, I thought about getting one on the way home for a shame cookie, a shame car cookie. And then I was able to resist. So I'd like a pat on the back if you don't mind. Yeah, this is me patting you on the back. Thank you. Wow, so strong. I don't know where you're going to pat me for taking a...

brown paper bag of cookies home for me. Because when I walked up, the nice cookie people were like, oh, you got to go in there. They're like the thick, they're kind of like the Lavon bakery style. They're scones. They're chocolate chips scones. They're muffin tops. Their muffin can stop us. We're all the way up. They're meant to be, you know, like a fine ribeye steak. Black and blue. It's gooey in the middle. It's chewy on the outside. The first thing you do when you walk into a party, you don't want to eat just 800 calories worth of chocolate chip cookie. It's just going to sit. It's going to be a bad base of non-protein, Chris. Okay. I don't want to bet. I hate to use those words. But then on the way out, mama mia, and I was like, oh, can I get a cookie to go? Do you have like a to-go box? And she gave me six plus two miniature cinnamon rollets. The cinnamon rolls were looking fucked up. Did you try any of it? There may have been a cinnamon roll with the morning coffee this AM, and I am so sorry to Hubies for cheating on our diet together. But how good was the cinnamon roll? So good, man. You know how good a cinnamon roll tastes when you have been eating cauliflower rice, when eating a potato, a sweet potato is cheating? Yeah. A cinnamon roll is one of those things that I don't really think about that often, but I really, really like when I have it. And there was a... When we were in London, we were staying at that hotel in Chelsea. There was like a cinnamon roll place right next to the hotel. And finally, I was just like, all right, fuck it. I'm getting one of these. And it is delicious. It pays off almost more than a cookie to me. More like a croissant. It's different. To me, a cinnamon roll, I have a great cinnamon roll memory where we used to go to Lake Arrowhead during the winter time. And there was like some recipe I found online for like a 24-hour. Yeah. Same. It all happens in the same bowl kind of thingy. Sure. But it's kind of a cold, snowy day. Maybe you're taking your shitty kids up to upstate or whatever. You're going to Ohio. And then you make the little cinnamon roll dough the night before. You wake up. Oh, I see. Plop it into the oven because it's like an overnight proof kind of thing. Yeah. Pop them in the oven and then you wake up.

to the smell of Cinnabon in your own home. Maybe a little smoke is coming out of the chimney. The frost is melting on the tip of a hummingbird's nose. You're really setting the stage. I like that, and that seems like the perfect, ideal environment to ingest a cinnamon roll. I feel like the other way to do it is to be at the airport or at the mall. That's what I, you know what I mean? Like a true, but my mom made cinnamon rolls all the time, of course. Like we had the ones in the can all the time and they were delicious. Like I would rather have those than a gourmet one. Well, I think there's a good kind of cross between the two of those. There's a compromise where I was at Erwan and they have their own sort of like non-GMO, blah, blah, blah, crazy. cinnamon roll in a can, but it's like literally the same one in the can. You pop it open like you get it down at Kroger or whatever. Damn, you still get the Kroger feeling with the Erwan Price. I like that. That's exactly what I'm looking for. Kroger feeling, Erwan Price. But that one, that does remind me of Chapel Moan when she said, y'all, I tried this Haley Bieber smoothie and it's just a milkshake or something like that. This bitch doesn't know about sea moss. This bitch doesn't know about hydrochloronic acid, whatever. Unfortunately, I think that Chapel is right and she's speaking truth to power and kind of giving a voice to the voiceless. Who's the voiceless group in this equation? People who know that that smoothie is just dessert. It's not a smoothie. It's a milkshake. She's right. And I think people are denying it. People want to think it's healthier than it is when it's probably only slightly healthy is my guess. Okay. Well, this depends on the definition of the word healthy. But I would say that a milkshake is sort of void of nutrients other than the calcium you're going to get. I know it's not actually a milkshake. It tastes very sweet like a milkshake too.

you know, Kaylee's untrained Midwestern palate who's used to eating Bowberry pancake syrup and things like that. But, you know, there's also a lot of amazing nutrients in there. Who knows if your body is being absorbed or your body is absorbing them. But I've had a couple sips and it doesn't, it's too sweet. That's what I'm saying as far as, that's what reminds me most of the milkshake. Let's hold the milkshake sommelier talk off because our guest is here, Chris. We don't want to keep him waiting. We would hate to keep him waiting. I'm sure he has some opinions on milkshakes. Oh, wow. Okay, hold on one second. We're going to get into it. Give me one second. Not another word, Jay. Because the sun just hit me in a bad way. See what I'm saying? It's coming through the... Oh, no, Chris. Oh, no. There we go. All right. We're moving. Company move. All right. Let's see. Our guest today is Jay McInerney, a writer that you guys are all probably familiar with. Several books over the years, Bright Lights, Big City, Story of My Life, Brightness Falls. uh, et cetera, et cetera. But he's actually, I think he's in LA. We're all in LA, which is rare, rare for how long gone. So let's, uh, let's tap in with Jay and see what's going on. 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 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? You know, especially when it's not, you know, from here, let's say. Give it a listen. Give it a listen. 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. So do our peers, our listeners, our friends, our colleagues. Obviously. 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 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 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. 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. Jay, what are you doing in LA? I find that strange, that's all. I do too, but I've been visiting for years. Sure. Usually staying at the Chateau Marmont. Must be nice. Well, Jay, I feel like maybe you might have a nice little bungalow in Malibu. I don't know if you're really in K-Town right now. Am I correct? No, I'm in Malibu. I'm in the colony, actually. Okay, okay. So I had a friend who had a house here. I would borrow it occasionally over the years. And I always said to myself, I love it here, but thank God I don't own it because it'll be gone. It'll be washed away in 20 years. But then it turned out that after my last day, somebody, Rick Hilton, told me there was a house for sale in the colony. And so my wife and I went down to see it, and we really...

Kind of just took to this idea. By the way, I think this is the last unrestored house in the colony. It was built in 1932, probably by a set designer. And I haven't done much to it since. But it's right on the beach, right on the ocean. Love that. Next thing I knew, we had bought it. And I love to come out here. I really do. And the history of the colony is pretty interesting. I mean, it's not as bohemian as it used to be, but it's... It's still pretty... There's still some dirt under the fingernails. I've been to some 4th of July parties at the colony that didn't feel very bohemian, to say the least, is what I would say. Yeah, the valet parkers were bohemian at least. Well, you know, last month Flea found my lost dog, so that was pretty cool. Oh, so okay, the neighbors are friendly. That's always a plus of any... I feel like that's the starting, a beautiful start to a poem or a haiku. Flea found my dog. Elegant pros. I feel like if I was in your shoes and Rick Hilton gives me a real estate tip, I'd do whatever I can to buy that house so I don't embarrass myself in front of real estate Baron Rick Hilton. Yeah, that's true. The pressure was on. That's hard to do. I'm selling cars. I'm selling teeth. What's your routine like when you're in Malibu? Are you a... water baby like me? Do you worship the ocean? Do you love the healing properties? I love the ocean. In fact, you know, I can hear it from almost every part of the house and especially the master bedroom. And also, I had just taken up surfing two or three years before I arrived here. And now I can just walk out. So, all right. So you and Jonah Hill are out there fighting for the waves. This is good. This is, this is what I want to see. This is what I want to see. I ran into him very early on. He was out there. No, he's always out there. That's the only place he is. He's not making any movies. He's surfing. Okay, out of all the Jonah Hillses and the Diplos and the Diplos Brazilian girlfriends out there, do any of these young whippersnappers know who you are or recognize you, or is it more the old dogs out there? Yeah, I have pretty good recognition in L.A. considering that I'm a writer.

Yeah, look. Seriously, yeah. Will you come from an era, though, where writers were a little more visible, I feel like, in a different way, in like a real old media way? Now writers have to use Instagram, which isn't your best feature, I would say. No, no. Yeah, I feel like I was part of a generation that was sort of the last generation of writers that could be read and heard and seen. and somewhat influential the way that Norman Mailer and Gorby Dahl and Truman Capote were. I would agree with you. I feel like it's an entirely different landscape now. When's the last time somebody interviewed you while you smoked a cigarette on television? I feel like it must be decades now at this point. I did that a lot. I know. We know. That's one of my dreams. One of my life's dreams is to light up a cigarette on national television. restaurants i mean that i that i remember i'm in my early 40s like i remember that when i was in my early 20s what i'm more what i romanticize more is on the plane that just seems so fucked up well you know I remember when they changed it to only the back of the plane. And you're not sitting back there, so you had to, I understand, you stopped smoking. I was, because I wanted to smoke. When I first published Bright Lights, Big City, I was living in Syracuse, New York, and I was studying with Raymond Carver. And so I started getting called down to New York to go into the Today Show and shit like that. And so I would get on People's Express. I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with People's Express. That's an airline. People's Express was a short-lived budget airline. Great name. EasyJet of New York State. And they had a route between Syracuse and LaGuardia. So I would jump on that plane and smoke up a storm, and then I would... And I would do my thing in New York. See how many cigarettes you could smoke in 38 minutes on your flight from Syracuse to LaGuardia? Raymond Carver would be proud. Yeah, Ray was a chimney. That's what I'm saying. I mean, I hate to joke about it because he died of lung cancer. But, you know, he didn't have much then. He quit drinking about 10 years before he died.

And in fact, the first time I met him, he was visiting his editor, Gordon Lish. And I was in my apartment in the village recovering from a night of drinking and doing coke. And so my editor called me up to say, Raymond Carver's coming down to your apartment. I said, yeah, sure. And I hung up. And about 10 minutes later, my buzzer rings, and it indeed looks like Raymond Garber. It looks like him. It looks like him. So he came upstairs, and I was just barely awake. And finally, I thought one way to wake up was to do more coke. Smart. Smart. So he and I spent the next seven hours in my apartment talking about it. literature and getting really high. I bet you guys were talking. I get you guys are talking a lot. Yeah. I bet you had a lot to go. You guys probably wrote a couple of books together in that seven hour period. Just had to get it out very fast. And then we realized that he was, he was about to miss his, his reading at Columbia university, which was one of the reasons that he had come to New York. And, and so I convinced him to get on the subway, which would, because that was the only way to get to Columbia from the village in, in, in, you know, 20 minutes. And he was very skeptical about the subway. I don't like being in the subway on Coke either, so I get it. Yeah, that's a fair... Yeah, I would say that's a fair... Really ruins the high. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, it's a fair way to think about it. It's not the ideal way to enjoy your Coke hot. The subway can ruin any high, really. I don't want to limit it to Coke. Kind of anything. Anything, it will take the wind out of your sails. Okay, so you're coming down, then you zip over to Columbia University. Yeah. Did you go with him, or did you stay home? Yeah, I went with him. Okay, okay. Luckily, there were some other readers who preceded him. One of them was Harold Brodke, who's no longer a household name. But anyway, he finally got up there, and he read this story, Put Yourself in My Shoes.

A very long short story for him, but he read it in about three minutes flat. He's like, you guys are going to get your money's worth, but I'm not going to drag this out. I'm not going to drag it out. As if he was being held at gunpoint for some reason. I've never heard anybody read so fast. Carver in general was a very slow speaker. There was a lot of pauses. But he got through it quick. He moved through it. You got the feeling that everything he said was meditated. He was a cautious kind of person when he wasn't drinking or when he wasn't high. But anyway, I just felt like since he couldn't drink, maybe he would enjoy. Some of the, I love, I love that idea. When I first started doing drugs, I did Coke without drinking for six months when I was like 20 and everybody thought I was crazy. And I think maybe I was onto something according to, according to the story you just told, maybe I was onto something. Yeah. Well, as long as you like being on Coke. Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's well, you know, not long after that, my, my girlfriend, um, Marla Hanson. convinced me to stop doing coke and i couldn't understand why i was falling over so much when i stood up from the table and and of course that was because you can't drink a liter of vodka without doing cocaine that's exactly right without getting drunk they call it a straightener for a reason yeah yeah that's those two are holding hands and taking you to bed after the sun rises you know that's not yeah actually i was gonna ask you know in terms of wine pairings our first pairing for this evening uh what what would you pair well with a fine cocaine. That's a great question. What are we pulling out of the cellar? At the time, the answer was absolute vodka. sure that was pretty much i think all we drank then uh he was there were i think stoli came from there was stoli and then there was absolute and eventually there was sky vodka but yeah but straight up vodka was usually a drink of choice although i think champagne goes well with coke yeah that's that's right that's kind of the ultimate i guess you're right i guess when you say straight up absolute vodka do you mean like in a martini or do you just mean vodka rocks that's it pretty much vodka rocks i mean i i think i sometimes

the vermouth in there just to feel civilized but sure sure i mean i think i absolute had such a moment because of all the advertising i feel like it was like a big revolution amazing advertising was so good at that time they asked me to do an ad and i turned them down um why'd you why'd you turn them down jay why'd you turn them down well because i i felt you know i mean it it seems like a really silly notion at this point in 2024 but I sort of felt like it was compromising for a writer to sell his endorsement. In other words, even though I did drink Absolute Vodka, I thought I shouldn't take money to say that I'm consuming something, whether or not I am. And I turned down a lot of ads at that time. Really? That's interesting. I mean, it's interesting to think about big brands coming. Dewars. Oh. Dewars was another one. Okay, so it's alcohol brands coming for you guys because they knew that you were using their product. Yeah, there wasn't any television advertising or magazine advertising for cocaine at that time. Dewars was the best thing you were going to have, best option you were going to have. You could get a Coke. Coke spoon in the back of a hustler, that's about it. Yeah, it's not going further. Some jewelry, some inspired jewelry. So you were an early influencer is what you're saying, and you turned them all down, and that just made them want you even more, right? Yeah, I turned down the ads. On the other hand, I realize now that I was doing photo sessions. you know, for like Interview Magazine in like Armani. And they were, you know, they were detailing, listing all the clothes that I was wearing. So maybe I wasn't nearly as pure as I thought I was. Tammy Janowitz, who did a lot of these ads, was quite furious with me for... Yeah, I mean... At the time, it seemed... important to me. Well, at the time, you didn't need to do it to make a living. The thing about the Absolute ad, it would have been cool and aged well. That's the thing. It'd be like a thing to have. But I mean, we talked to a lot of musicians on this podcast, and we love to ask them about stuff they've turned down. And it's truly amazing how many monetary mistakes people have made because of...

ethics or morals that they no longer have. You know what I'm saying? They're like looking back 10 years. At the time, it's not a mistake. No, no, no. Hindsight. Jay didn't know that the only way a writer can make money in 2024 is by endorsing products on social media. I think you could have an uptick. Maybe you could get in the Reese Witherspoon book club or something. Really move some units. It's still possible. I don't know much about her book club, but I know that she really wanted to do the movie of my third novel, which is called Story of My Life, and I really wanted her to do it. And unfortunately, the rights were all tangled up. But I think she's a really good actress. Strangely enough, I read to her third or fourth grade class when I was in Nashville. Wow. Like many, many years ago. Obviously, I don't know. I would have been maybe more like seventh or eighth grade. That's very, that's cool. She went to this prep school in Nashville and I was living part-time there at the time. What the hell were you doing in Nashville? I was married to a Nashvilleian. Okay, that explains it. As I said, it was part-time and ultimately it didn't take because, you know, Nashville's a... It's still the kind of place to a certain extent where people, you know, you go to a party and people ask you what church you attend. That's right. I'm from the South, so I'm very familiar with that line of questioning. This is considered polite conversation. You're like, I don't, what? Yeah, we actually, we were at the Emmys last night. We saw Reese Witherspoon and we both thought to ourselves that she really had that like. celebrity glow like the a-list glow that us us commoners cannot achieve no matter what we do yes and i i feel like that's few and far between these days yeah she does yeah i saw i saw her most recently at uh at a premiere in the hamptons um uh for one of her rom-coms and she was very nice and she remembered she remembered our attempts to uh

I mean, why does that always happen? Why is the right stuff so complicated? Because I feel like there's always a bad story. The name of this... Story of my life. The story of your life. No, it wasn't my life. It was a story of a 20... Simply a title. 21-year-old girl who used that phrase a lot. Story of my life. My old man, semi-check, bounced, story of my life. That was... you know she she had a kind of a valley girl speak and uh and i mean reese would have been she would have been great in the role i must say and this was just after she had formed her own production company and yeah yeah i i think she's great but um i can't say you know like i can't say they were great buddies or anything but go reese i'm glad she's still looking good yeah exactly there you go that's i mean No, but to the rights thing, why is it so complicated? Like, why isn't it cut and dry? Because they expire and then somebody, you know what I mean? Is it takes so long for the studios to do anything? Yeah, well, also, you know, people, the personnel at the studios changes a lot. Like, I was just reading this morning about, you know, the Netflix executive who got kicked out of Netflix and therefore the prince. documentary may never see today. The New York Times Magazine story. New York Times Magazine, exactly. And that's kind of typical of what can happen. And once a certain executive is gone, the rival executives don't have any interest in helping her project along. I'll give you a personal example. So the rights to this trilogy that I wrote, starting with Brightness Falls, were sold and uh to amazon then the uh the the guy who was in amazon his name escapes me right now was me too'd uh he was uh all right so that okay so we're gonna we're gonna have the project is slowing down i see where this is going i see where this is going yeah he he was yeah apparently i mean i mean among other things

that he was criticized for is he said that he was only going to watch Pretty Little Lies if the girls took their shirts off. Okay, look, I don't look. I thought that was a great show. If they took their shirts off, it probably, I mean, it doesn't hurt the plot, but I don't think you need to kind of make that declaration if you work at it. They don't need to be topless for the whole thing. Yeah, exactly. In 2017, it wasn't the right thing to say. That's right. That's right. So this project had been sold. We've done various versions of the pilot. Wow. And then the executive who came in and took over his job basically threw out everything that he had been working on, including a George Sanders project. So this guy, this Me Too executive did have good taste, at least. He did have good taste. But it reminds me of the story of what happens when a new... When a new male lion comes into a pride that's lost its leader and the new male lion immediately kills the young male lions that are in that pride before it takes over. And that's what happens in Hollywood when an executive gets fired. The little lions get killed. So these things toil away. And in this particular instance, did you write the pilot? Did you stay with it or did you just kind of let them do it? Honestly, I think it's probably going to get picked up somewhere because I just finished the fourth and last. Oh, there's a final chapter in the trilogy. So what once was a trilogy has now become a tetralogy. Tetralogy? I didn't know that word. Excuse me. I didn't use it correctly. But now the problem will be that. the amazon will claim that they've spent all this money on the project and anybody who wants to take it over will have to pay them like buy them out almost yeah and that's called the back end and sure so that's another reason that things get yeah of course so i so you finished a fourth okay and this this this story has been going on for for a long time and it's well starting with the

stock market crash in 1987 yeah so where where do they land in the foot don't give it away obviously but where are they in their lives where are russell and corinne in their lives in well they they both are about they both have just turned 60 and i okay in my mind you know i started writing about this young really glamorous couple and i think Sure. You can't write about people in their 70s and 80s having affairs. No, that's true. That's not what they're doing, really. This is definitely it. But it starts in the pandemic, and it's called See You on the Other Side. Okay, great title. The place I got the title was I was visiting a friend in Brooklyn, of all places. I think you guys were there recently. No, I was actually visiting someone at the very beginning of the pandemic. And we went to the deli, and the deli had closed. And there was a sign slapped on the door that said, see you on the other side. And at that time, it seemed like things would be closed for a week or two at most. And I remembered the sign, and I eventually put it in my novel. It suddenly seemed like a good title. Did you work on it a lot during COVID? Was that the main production phase? I wrote a number of things during COVID, but one was a memoir and one was this novel. What's coming out first? Novel. Okay. My agent looked at the memoir and she said, Jay, I can't tell you how many lawsuits I see here. Okay, so do you think the memoir will never see? Which means it's a good memoir. Yeah, exactly. Do you think it'll never see the light of day? Or are you willing to kind of take a few things out to appease the agent and get this thing over the line? 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.

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Upgrade that look starting at just $34. You know, if you get a nice linen suit, a little t-shirt underneath it, some chill shoes, you're looking good, but you're staying cool. The inside of your special areas are nice and dry as you turn up with your besties. So elevate that summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash how long for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns, even on a nice holiday now available in Canada. That is Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash how long. That'll get you free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince punto com slash how long. Once the novel is to bet, I think I'm going to see what I can do with the memoir. There's actually some TV people looking at the memoir who are very interested. But again, I'm not sure what the legal ramifications are. But the problem... It's not the famous people that you have to worry about because, you know. It's the ex-wives. It's the ex-wives. We know exactly who it is. Yeah, exactly. I mean, Mick Jagger can't sue me, but, you know, my ex-girlfriend can't. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. I mean, I think that the thing about a memoir and when I've talked to people that have written them, especially people that are like on the younger side, they're kind of just like, don't do that. Don't do it. It's going to ruin your life. If you like your life, don't do that because it will ruin your life because people will be very mad. And if you don't make people mad, then it's also not a good book. So it's a lose-lose situation for the writer. I'm not sure at this point what's going to happen with it. memoir, but it's there. Maybe it'll have to wait until I'm gone. That's the thing. If it's finished and it's sitting there, if it's there, it's done. It's going to come out. You'll take the posthumous lawsuits. What do you think? How do you think Keith McNally navigated his memoirs? I feel like he's got a couple burn bridges, right? Yeah. Did Keith come out? Not yet. It comes out in November. I think it comes out in November. I tried to help him.

And the last I heard, his agent had kind of fired him. But it's a pretty spicy story. And I'm looking forward to it. Who isn't? I've known Keith. pretty much since 1980, when I first went to the Odeon, and he almost kicked me out. And then again, when I was publishing my first novel, I had to go down to the Odeon because the Random House lawyers told me that... that Keith McNally could sue my ass off. And so I went down hat in hand with a copy of the book. So for making the restaurant a character, he could come after you, kind of. Supposedly. Well, people were doing coke in the bathrooms. You're not lying. I mean, people are still doing coke in those bathrooms. Nothing has changed. So Keith said that he read the book. I don't know whether he did or not. He might have skimmed it. He might have skimmed it. Well, to this day. He will tell people, as he often has to, that he didn't think he'd ever hear about this book again. He just gave me permission. He said, sure, whatever, go ahead. See, that's how it works the first time, and then it never works like that again. And then he said later that he was shocked about... About nine months later, he was walking up Fifth Avenue in the then Brentano's bookstore, which is now probably a CVS pharmacy. There was like 50 copies of my book in the windows with a picture of the audio on the cover. And he was shocked, but it was too late because he'd already signed off. But this also seems good for the restaurant. Overall, I think it's a win. Well, look, we've been arguing for years about whether I owe him money or he owes me money, but I think he owes me money. He owes you money. I'll settle it right here. As long as they buy a slice of pie before they go do a bump in the bathroom, it's win-win for everyone, right? Yeah, who cares? Yeah, exactly. French fries don't pay for themselves. I mean, writing the memoir, that's crazy that it's done, and it's just like a, I mean.

Do you want it to, how badly do you want it to come out? Like, are you like, I finished this, I need it to come out. Are you kind of like, whatever I did. I'm, I'm a little ambivalent about it because yeah, I know, I know it's going to cause trouble. And, uh, I mean, this would be my, I don't know, 13th or 14th book. So it's not, it's not as if I'm desperate to see my name on the cover of a book. Sure. Sure. You're like, this ain't my first rodeo. We can hold on this. How now did your, did your current wife read the book? My current wife read. That's a good question whether she read the memoir. Yeah, I think she did read it. Yes. Well, did she say she read it or did she actually read it? You know what I mean? She really did read it. But fortunately for both of us. The story ends before we get together. Okay, so you're free and clear on that. You're not getting charged. That's smart. She doesn't have any reason to be mad at me. Well, I'm sure she has some reason to be mad at you. Write the last chapter involving her. Give it to your publisher. And then once you croak... Throw it on there and straight to Barnes and Noble we go. I'm sure she's younger than you, so she'll have to deal with that. But either way, I mean, you know, they'll soften the blow a little bit. Let's say that. Chances are very good that she's going to outlive me, I'm afraid. Sure, sure. I like that you're realistic. For a multitude of reasons. Well, speaking of outliving you, right before we started talking... You mentioned milkshakes being a good hangover cure. I'd like to hear more about that, please. Yeah, well, that's my go-to hangover cure, chocolate milkshake. My third wife said she could always tell when I... had a really rough night when I, when I drank a milkshake the next day. When you've got the brown, the brown stain around your lips. Yeah. Like a child with chocolate milk. Where is the, where is your New York city milkshake spot? You know, unfortunately, you know, for many, many years there were every, every other block had a Greek diner and that was the Greek diners were the, were the place to get the milkshake. And, um, unfortunately they, they've kind of closed one by one. There's, there's, there's one on sixth Avenue.

Because are you still downtown? Yeah, I'm downtown. There's one in 6-7 in Waverly that I go to. Also, there's a Shake Shack near me. Okay, so you've modernized. You go get a concrete or whatever they're called. The Shake Shack shakes are pretty damn good, I have to say. It is in the name. It is in the name. Have you met a chocolate milkshake that you didn't like, though? You know what I mean, Jay? Not really. I mean, I can make them pretty well myself, too. Oh, okay. Because are you good in the kitchen, or are you just a wine? Okay, you are. I am good. I mean, I don't cook in New York City, but when I'm not in New York City, I cook. But it seems foolish to cook in New York City when there's 9,000 or 10,000. restaurants to be explored, you know? It's so nice to hear that. This is the hill. And nine or ten square feet in your kitchen. Sorry for interrupting. Exactly. Your kitchen's bigger than mine. I'm guaranteeing that, but... I still don't. I feel exactly the same way. I'm like, why would I? This is it. This is ground zero for the best of everything. Why would I attempt to do that? And I don't use the delivery services either because I hate the way they rip the restaurants off. And I'd rather go out and see who's out there. Man, I'm so with you. The delivery service thing, in a pinch, I will do it if I have to. But the experience is just so bad. Everybody loses. Everybody loses. The delivery driver, the restaurant, the customer, no one wins. People walking on the sidewalk who have to dodge electric motorcycles. They might have it the worst. They might have it the worst. Yeah, but I'm a restaurant lover. And for me, the theater that was once nightclubs and bars has to some extent been replaced by restaurants. Absolutely. It's not always the case that there's a correlation between the quality of the food and the quality of the scene. In fact, it's usually the opposite. That's right. But it's like all of Keith's restaurants, you want to go and see the people. For sure. You want to see the models and actors and just the downtown kid. I mean, it's interesting because at Balthazar, it's still, it's so many.

Because I live really close, and I feel like the crowd is still locals, even though it's so many tourists. The tourists don't deter locals from going, which is a very hard thing to achieve. It's true. It's actually true of the Odeon as well. Yeah, for sure. The Odeon has become more of a place for people in the neighborhood. Well, it's the Condé Nast cafeteria as well when they move downtown during the day. Yeah, it's become the Condé Nast. cafeteria. I think that's Keith's biggest strength is he can create a restaurant, I mean, or operate one that polices itself. Yeah. I mean, it's amazing what Keith has done for New York, but you don't go to Keith's restaurant to... to reinterpret your vision of cuisine. That's a very nice way to put it. Wow. That's the same thing that I say, except you said it with so many better words. You know, it's like... There's only so many ways that you can do the frise salad with goat cheese and lardons. I don't like food enough to care. That's the thing. I don't like food enough to have a life-changing experience after a fucking 15-course. It's just the experience is what you're going for. The hum of the room. You don't go there for the food or whatever you said so much more eloquently. We were talking about Shake Shack. Danny Myers has been a friend of mine all these years as well. But I was sort of furious with Danny when he banned smoking in his restaurant at Union Square Cafe years ago. And I always used to say, you definitely didn't go to Danny's restaurants for the girls. Sure, sure. That's not what they got on offer there. union square cafe is like fully back too correct like it's still well it moved a couple of blocks but yeah yeah that's what i thought okay okay okay but he um i mean as you know he went on to open so many places and and most of them have been successful although he got a great deal of grief at the beginning of the pandemic oh yeah he did i remember that now i remember that now well he accepted uh

What is a PPF loan? Look, everybody, I mean, look. I can't get mad at somebody for accepting free money from the government. That's their business. It depends on if that loan money is going towards his fourth mortgage for the lake house or whatever. I don't think he needed the money that bad. I think he was giving it to his employees. Danny definitely doesn't need much more. But, you know, he... He wasn't buying diapers with the money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Union Square Cafe, I believe, opened in 1985. And it was really a wonderful, wonderful place to go back then, you know, because he had much more of a sort of Italian Mediterranean vision than a French classical cuisine vision. And that same year, Gotham Bar and Grill opened nearby. David Boulay opened Montrachet. And suddenly it was like downtown restaurants were kind of cool. I mean, Keith and his wife had started it all in 1980 with Odeon. And then his brother opened Indochine, which was another hot place. Indochine's kind of back. It's wild. The food's pretty good, but to me it's just too much like a Mr. Chow, but not Mr. Chow. I just would rather go. to Mr. Chow. That's just me. Chow, another place that I don't go for the food. What say you, Jay? Actually, I kind of like the menu. My man. My man. There's some good stuff on there. There's some good stuff. The fried rice for 97 is wonderful, guys. I love that. Yeah, but it was amazing. When I first moved to New York, there wasn't much that was downtown in terms of eating. That was why Odeon was such a a kind of landmark uh restaurant there was nothing there was virtually nothing in tribeca well especially in tribeca i was gonna say tribeca was sleepy until five years ago i mean kind of it's still back then it was mostly just like uh oil oil barrels on fire and and carjackings and muggings yeah i mean well if that i mean that was kind of soho whereas tribeca you could walk through tribeca and you wouldn't see a soul from

for blocks and blocks that's what that's what i mean when i say sleepy it's literally like there's just nobody around like a tumbleweed going down yeah which is so rare that's what new york is so interesting and why i always tell people that i feel so safe is because there's just always people around always and there was yeah you know it's it's um a lot of my friends from elsewhere ask me if new york is going to hell in a handbasket and yeah i don't know it it obviously the pandemic uh put a dent in things uh the migrant crisis is is serious but but i still feel awfully safe in new york compared to the compared to the late 70s when yeah sure basically you know in 1979 everybody i knew got mugged you know um i was the only person i know who wasn't successfully mugged because I twice ran away from muggers and I was fast enough. Everybody's apartment was broken into. I did have my Volkswagen bug stolen twice and the second time I never got it back. I was going to say, twice is better. At least you got it back once. Safety aside, do you still think that New York is the center of the universe? I keep waiting for a plausible alternative, but certainly L.A. has become much more culturally relevant in the last... 10, 15 years in terms of the art world. You know, I mean, the movie industry was always here. But everybody opened here. It's crazy. Every gallery opened here. Everyone. And they can get these giant, beautiful spaces for, you know, half the price. Yeah, yeah. It's true. There's much more space here. And, you know, certainly, you know, I think the restaurant scene has gotten pretty interesting. And so, I mean, I would say it's New York or L.A. Yeah. You know, I went to Miami for a while. What were you trying to do? Were you avoiding taxes or you just wanted some sun? No, no. I was just, you know. My wife fell in love with Miami for a while. I get it. We used to rent a place there for like. Key Biscayne or like Miami Beach? Miami Beach. I love Miami, you know, in doses. In doses. It can be really special. Yeah, I just, I don't know. There's something still a little airsats to me about.

The restaurants that open, they're all versions of someplace from Los Angeles or New York. You don't want your Carbone on the beach. I get it. Yeah, Carbone. I totally get it. I'm with you on that. That's the hottest restaurant in America probably right now. In terms of whether you can get in or not, it's Carbone and Miami Beach. Oh, for sure. A lot of sports stars, a lot of hip-hop stars. It's the Noma of Florida is what you're saying. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. What were you driving in Miami? You have the orange Lambo, the Corvette. What are we pulling out? White Range Rover? I was driving an Aston Martin. There we go. Okay. Okay. God damn it. You know, I just drove one. They let me borrow one for the weekend, and it was the SUV. It was really nice, but no one told me. No one told me it was going to be bright orange with bright orange interior. So I was going to Philadelphia of all places. I thought that color was patented by Lamborghini. I'm sure it's just a slight differentiation on the shade to make it legal. But the Aston Martin, you weren't driving the SUV. You were driving the sedan? No, the coupe. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, the DB11. Yeah, fortunately, I don't think there's a lot of cliche encrusted around Aston Martin, whereas the Lambo is like the tech bro vehicle. For sure. They've been ruined. No, Aston Martin's for the heads. I think many people pass over that when they're looking for a car at that price range. But yeah, and the Ferrari is the sort of third marriage, late midlife crisis vehicle. But they're great cars. So are you saying you've had one or you haven't had one? I have not, actually. I haven't. Okay, that's good. So what are you taking down to Nobu on the weekends then, Jay? What's pulling out of the garage? Well, this week I'm without a car because I've just been moving around a lot.

The guy who lives across the street, who is the caretaker over there, drives me around. Beautiful. Yeah. A lot of times when I come here, I rent a Tesla or something. Yeah. Although I'm thinking of organizing an anti-Tesla league. Once Musk endorsed Trump, I just saw it. Seriously? All these left-wing Californians are buying this car? I say it all the time. But also I say that. why do we expect so much from these business owners? Most people at that level are Trump. Personally, I'm able to separate the art from the artist as it pertains to Elon and his automobiles. I don't know if you guys can do that or not. It's tough. That's the interesting question. Can you? I mean, for instance, Hemingway, the more we learn about him, he's just... kind of a terrible not great not great yeah not great or uh prince you know this whole prince documentary which is which may may not get released you know the issue really is you know how do you how do you separate out the the genius artist from from the man with all of his flaws. Well, we were at a Disney Emmy party last night, and the band was happily playing Michael Jackson. Nothing matters. It's all good, man. Another good example. If you contributed something that... Prince, I think, is the best comp for Michael Jackson. If you contributed basically the American songbook to an entire generation, you're kind of forgiven, especially if you're dead. You're fine. But like Elon Musk, he looks dead, but he's still alive. And it doesn't work that way. It's not the same thing. You know what I mean? Also, a car is not art. That's the issue. That's true. Slow down. Slow down. I don't know. I will admit it. I own one. Yeah. No, most people do. It's a damn fun car to zip around town in, isn't it? It is. It is. And in fact, the way that I...

convinced my wife that it wasn't a stupid idea was that I rented a couple of times out here. And, you know, I just show, I mean, in Malibu, it's like, it's practically the mascot vehicle. Oh, yeah. It comes with the house. Cross Creek Village there. Right across the way, there's 40 or 50 charging stations. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, you never have to use your own electricity. You're saving money on electric. Tell the rich to stay richer down there at the Boo. Yes, I realize it's a cliche, but it's a very beautiful place. There's a reason. Everyone goes and lives there. For a damn reason. It's just that special and amazing. On the other hand, going to West Hollywood is a real pain in the ass. Hey, fuck you. I'm in West Hollywood right now. No, I'm just saying I love West Hollywood. I'm joking. It's far. West Hollywood was my neighborhood for many, many years. It's far. It's far from Malibu. That's all I'm saying. Well, that's the thing about Malibu. You have to... You either have to be a writer or you can't work because you're not interacting with anybody except the salespeople at the Chrome Hearts store. You'll become close friends with a local turtle. Yeah, there's no deals going down at the Sun Life. There's the Soho House Malibu. You've got some big dicks swinging over there. That's true. Soho House Malibu, I think he's the only one that has separate membership. You have to apply separately to Malibu. I've only been once for a lunch, and I was a little underwhelmed, I have to say. I was like, I don't get it. It took me an hour to get here, and I can't even really get in the ocean. I don't really understand. I can get my chips and guac somewhere closer. Yeah, well, again, you don't go for the food. No, you don't go for the food. That's right. Especially at Soho House. It's supposed to be limited to creative types. Well, that's the whole problem is that they've never been profitable famously. So it's like this whole thing where they started letting in kind of the banker and finance types and strayed from the original message, but they needed to make money because they were not. I was actually a member in London years ago, but that was pretty boho.

But as soon as it opened in New York, they had to just... passed a very broad net. It costs too much money to operate shit like that in New York. You have to call a bathtub a pool. Somebody dies in the tub and everybody kind of looks the other way. The history isn't great. Speaking of dying in the tub, I know you spent some time, you were talking about the Chateau Marmont earlier. When you were kind of running around LA, 80s, 90s with Brett Ellis, you got any good stories of those days? Let me see. I first came out here in 84. And at the time, it was the tail end of the whole entertainment industry, Coke epidemic. But there were still dealers in the parking lot at Le Dome. Smart. That's good business. That's good business. My agents were very happy to see me arrive. And we would, of course, go to Le Dome every night. Could you explain Le Dome for our younger listeners, perhaps? Well, it was a restaurant in Sunset Boulevard. I mean, it was definitely an entertainment industry hangout. But a lot of people who didn't... Didn't necessarily go to Le Dome to eat. Would stop by to see the valets. You're saying, okay, I understand. I'm seeing a theme in your restaurant visiting. I'm just going to go pop in. I'm just going to pop in. I'll have an appetizer or something. Get out. Well, what you do is you go to Morton's first or the Ivy. So when I first came to LA, those are the three. entertainment industry restaurants maybe maybe le dom as well so you'd go to one of those places and you'd have and and the dinner hour here was absurdly early to a new yorker you know it was like 6 30 was like prime time because because people would go from their offices to the restaurant and then they'd go home and it was also absurd that nope you know hardly anybody drank because of the driving thing and you know i mean

I remember just having a meeting with somebody, some producer. And so I thought, okay, I'll be conservative. So I ordered a glass of Chardonnay, you know, sort of first. And then with my steak, I had a glass of Cabernet. And so then the next day, my agent called up the producer to see how the dinner had gone. And the guy said, well, you know, I mean, Jay was very interesting, but he was really slamming the drinks, you know. I mean. I tried so hard not to slam the drinks in. The guy had two glasses of Pinot. He's a real lush. I know. I thought I was virtually sober. There was a strange dichotomy at that time between people who were still hedonists. And people who had gone crazy for a couple of years and then their whole social life revolved around AA, you know? Yeah. And everything was also about automobiles. And for some reason, I knew people who were rich as hell who refused to get a driver. And, you know, in New York, you wouldn't think of driving yourself anywhere, you know? And this was the era in New York of the stretch limo. But in LA, everybody had to drive their own car. I don't know why. It's still like that. I mean, it's still, that's like what the culture is. It's just, I think that's in the fabric. I don't think it's going anywhere. Yeah, we're just a little, we're just really good at driving drunk in LA is the thing. The video game is easier here for some reason. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. When I think about how often I used to drive drunk, I'm... I'm happy that I made it out the other side and that I have no DUIs. Oh, hell yeah. Me neither. The day is young, Jay. Yeah, you still got time. The Tesla doesn't drive itself all the time, all the time. I was in San Francisco the other day, and there's all these self-driving cars there. It freaks me out. It's weirder than seeing the food delivery robots in West Hollywood, I will say. It is.

And imagine those cars in LA. People would really rebel against that. They would throw their hands up. They would throw their arms up. I've seen a couple. I mean, all I think about is just a hacker somewhere just popping into the controls of that thing. Kidnapping you. Doing some damage. Jay, we've been interviewing you for the last 15 minutes. When's the last time you interviewed somebody? Oh, let's see. Let's see. Let's see. Let's see. I mean, I still do occasionally, but I can't think of when the last one was. You did. You did some airmail. You did an airmail story recently, right? Yeah, I did a book review for airmail. That's right. I mean, it's not an interview, but. Every two, three times a year, I do a review for the New York Times book review or for the Wall Street Journal airmail. But I haven't got it. I don't feel like I've interviewed. I actually did write a story recently for Alta Magazine, which is a great magazine, by the way. It's about strictly to California. But basically, after I moved here, I kind of wanted to know the history of the place. And Will Hurst asked me if I would consider, you know, writing a piece about the colony. So I interviewed as many people as I could, you know, who had been here a long time. There wasn't much about the history of this place. And I had a really interesting time doing, you know, like my neighbors, you know, my next door neighbor, this woman has been here for like 55 years. And so I wanted to know what it was like. And her son was telling me about, you know, seeing the birds play on the beach. Birds the band, not the animal, just to be clear. Jane Fonda invited to play. And they were like, you know, there was sort of... hanging out, smoking pot, watching the birds play on the beach, which was much wider at that point. There's more beach to be had. You know, this place has a really interesting history. And originally it was called the Malibu Movie Colony. And Mrs. Ringe, in an attempt to prevent the state from building a highway through here, rented all these plots to movie stars.

You know, you had all the silent era stars had places here. And these places were just originally built by set designer. And for many, many years, it was, you know, it was Chaplin and Paulette Godard and their ilk here all the way up till, you know, the sort of Cary Grant generation. And then starting in the late 60s. You had a lot of rock and roll people moving in. There was a music manager who had a house here, and Linda Ronstadt was here, and the Stones were here, and Led Zeppelin was here. There were these distinct periods, but there was a lot of interesting... shit that happened here in the colony i didn't know yeah it sounds like a book to me jay is all i'm saying i wish i wish i could have been to some of those parties i've i've yeah that's the main takeaway for me as well malibu is malibu that's the main takeaway for what is what is your consumption like media wise these days are you just are you reading a few newspapers are you online are you getting newsletters i still i still like newspapers and um you know in new york i get the I get the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post delivered. And the Post is for crime and gossip. The best. No one does it better. That's for sure. I was just over at the Malibu newsstand a couple of days ago right after the debate. And I usually buy the Times and the Post there. So the guy runs it. He's quite amusing. The New York Post had a front page that was all devoted to migrant crime. And I said, isn't this an interesting oversight that the New York Post? forgot to mention the debate on their front page. That's right. That's right. And he said, yeah, it's a terrible oversight. We'll have to ask them about that. I'm going to file an official complaint with those guys over there. The Post will get around to it eventually. See what they say. But what do you think of the newsletter boom as far as every writer kind of picking one up and having a direct kind of relationship with their reader? Well, I mean, I think it's a wonderful thing.

In some ways, you know, I mean, Substack is connecting with a lot of writers with a lot of people, I think. I keep meaning to do it, but I haven't. I sort of feel like I might see if there's some place for me in the media universe after I get this novel published. Yeah. But maybe this is just yet to be interviewed now. I mean, look, it's a lot more fun. Less editing. You also come from an era where it's like you kind of have these bodies of work that come out and it's a little bit of an ebb and flow in your life. It is, yeah. And I think with this stuff and the way it's turned, the idea is that you're always on consistently creating because you owe it to the people that are paying you versus like I walked into the bookstore and bought a book. It's a very different relationship with the reader. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I remember been telling me that I should go on Substack, but... At the same time, it seems like a lot of pressure to comment on everything that happens in the culture every day or every week. I don't know. Also fraught with peril. It's like just reading the comments sections of pieces that are published about me, pieces that I publish. kind of scary you know yeah people fans suck yeah that's for sure yeah yeah that no one can argue that i mean yeah all right i just think everybody obviously everyone has an opinion but i think once you're able to uh be anonymous and kind of spit venom as you see fit it it devolves very quickly yeah well honestly In the mid-1980s, I was such a target. I mean, there just wasn't a day that went by that I wouldn't pick up the New York Post and some waiter had sold my conversation with Brett Easton Ellis and picked out the most salacious parts. And Spy Magazine was constantly writing about us. I mean, Brett and myself were particular targets, I think, because we were so successful.

Because we went out all the time. You like talking a little shit, too. Yeah, we like talking a little shit. And we were nightclub kids. And unfortunately, there's just far too many pictures of us coming out of nightclubs. There's no denying. You can't. 2.30 in the morning with our eyes on wires. The proof's in the pudding. You're not beating the charges, is what you're saying. There's nothing you can say. But yeah, I think that there came a point where I mean, man, I was just wearying. That was when I bought a house in Nashville for a while. I just said, God, I'm just going to opt out of this ecosystem for a while. And it all eventually calms down. And there are cycles of resentment and celebration. You know, I think I might have finally eased myself out of the resentment segment of the cycle. You know, I mean, there were a couple of really nice pieces lately in airmail in the New York Times about the 40th anniversary of Brightlight's Big City. Yeah. And I was pleasantly surprised. I mean, the airmail piece I knew was coming out, but the Times was a total surprise. And I really, I don't know, it was really nice to see that, you know, People still reading the book, talking about the book and, uh, and, and, and, and not hating on it. I mean, look, the book is kind of a, it's kind of a classic. And I feel like if you read it at the right age, especially you have like a affinity for it. And I think there's some things that just, you know, luckily everyone can kind of agree on. You know what I mean? And maybe not at the time, but with a little bit of distance. That's a big reason why Chris lives in New York right now. Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's what you want your experience in New York to be like. So you try to find that after you read a book like that, and that just doesn't happen much anymore. I've been trying to keep my head down lately. I mean, at this point, my hair is getting gray.

I don't know. Maybe, you know, maybe, maybe I'm going to get some respect on this next book. There we go. You'll get some respect. Uh, Jay, thank you for joining us on how long gone. It was a pleasure. Um, and, uh, have fun in Malibu and, uh, we'll see you. Yeah. Jay, what's, what's for dinner tonight? What are you cooking up? I don't know about tomorrow. Tomorrow night I'm going to Nobu. Um, Yeah, sure. Yeah, I think tonight I might just try and cook something here for myself. I'm going to go see what they have at Old Flutes. Okay. Love it. Take it easy. Yeah, I'm alone here for the moment. Okay. Visiting a few friends. I mean, we now have... We have Lockies across the street. They opened one in New York, you know, on Lafayette. Just what New York needs, another steakhouse. It's literally the size of a post-it. I went to the opening, and I was like, is this all of it? Is there another floor or something? I was like, what are we doing? It's like eight tables. I don't understand the reasoning, but anyway, I should check it out. We also have this new place called Zinke Bar here, which is kind of a bistro. I mean, you know, at least there's a few choices. You know, Santa Monica and Venice are, you know, a fair way away. Plenty to eat in Santa Monica. Dip over to Rustic Canyon, maybe. I mean, Felix is great. There's some food there. There we go. Thanks, Jay. Well, thanks for... Jay, we appreciate it. Thanks for talking to me. Of course, of course. Pleasure. This was fun.