087. - Matthew Schneier

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.

Chris, what the hell is up, bro? Hey, bro. You're quick on the draw. I like when you answer fast. We have no time today. We have no time. It's a big, it's a stacked Thursday, isn't it? It's a Stack Thursday at How Long Gone Industries, and I'm sure separately at Them Jeans Industries and Done to Death Projects, LLC, and Public Announcement as well. All of our verticals are very engaged today. Verticals be booming. Dude, it is hot as a motherfucker outside. It is hot than a motherfucker, 100%. Two days ago, I was doing my... My yard work outside and the skin melted off my hand while I was shoveling, affecting my tennis game yesterday, as you know. I mean, I appreciate your excuse for my victory. As a person who's been dealing with an ankle injury on and off for months, I'm glad to see the tables turn where Big TJ took a little tumble. I did lose. I was unable to hold the racket with my hand. I had to use my fingers. I had to hold the racket with my fingers. I like how you're trying to spin this as that your fingers are not connected to your hand, which I really like that spin on the human anatomy. When you imagine a baseball player swinging a baseball bat, but you can't hold it in your hand. You only have to cradle it. or supported by your fingertips. So that's the vibe at hand, pun intended. And it causes me to have no control, no power. And you did, unfortunately, beat me three games to two. Four games to two. Well, the next time we play tennis... I will make sure to beat you six games to zero as per our scheduled tennis programming. Bitch, you do love carbs. You love a bagel. We know that. Well, I slept really well last night. I think all that physical activity really put me in a nice place. Sleeping like a little baby? We had pine and crane for dinner last night, too, which I forgot how good that is. Yeah, it's very, very good. So you had all kinds of wood ear mushrooms and things like that?

I went hella hard on the mushies, bro. You already know. I'm like you with the trippy shit. You know what I'm saying? Good. Well, tonight, Bae is cooking up a feast of Vietnamese vegetarian cuisines. There'll be a little shrimp in play, though. Don't worry. That's okay. You know I like to dabble in the oceanic arts. Yeah, so that'll be served up at our wrap party for episode one, season premiere pilot episode of our Twitch show. How are you feeling about going motherfucking live globally all across the world, pinging the towers from Seoul to Los Angeles to New York to Moscow? Yeah, like I was touching on the last episode, I am the excitement of having a visual medium to play with. is balancing out the unsure nerves of what could be going on. Once you go live, you're removing the safety net. If you fuck up, if you do a bad job, if the joke doesn't land, I'm not able to cut that out in post. I'm not able to cut that out in post. I think that you're doing the most surgery on yourself in post because Chris, don't miss. That is true. Take that to the bank, baby. Not every one of my jokes land, but every one of your jokes land. But I do have to do a decent amount of pruning on each file depending on what things you may have said about your past that you would like to be scrubbed. But you're normally a pretty open book, but everyone has their little hang-ups, which is fine. That's true. And thank you for that service. And that's why I'm glad that I have a nerd on my side who knows how to make his way around the MacBook screen and keyboard. Yeah. And, you know, it'll be a little interesting, you know, much like, you know, watching the debates a few days ago. We will be, you know, we will be delivering without an audience. So there will be no, you know, we'll have track. Yeah, we'll have no laughter. You know, this isn't, you know.

Whatever. What news shows do the laugh track? Like Bill Maher? Well, I think that luckily you're able to make me cackle pretty easily. So I can be that voice that you need. That reassuring chuckle. Doesn't take much for this crow to caw. Thank God. No, it doesn't. It really doesn't. But I'm very happy because we're taking this seriously, Jason. We're having in-studio guests, live in-studio. Fuck COVID. You know what I'm saying? We're willing to risk it all to give you guys content that you're not going to get anywhere else. So I think that inviting New York visitor Bryn Walner, a.k.a. Bryn Trill, onto the show kind of takes it to another level. I don't know about you. It literally takes it to another level. Not everyone will survive. Not every guest that enters our studio will survive because of our super-spreading nature. But these are the eggs that you have to break in order to make a perfect omelette. I'm saying Bryn will not. She will not live to see the month of November, most likely, once she's in the same room as us. That's the power of How Long Gone. She's willing to basically kill herself to be on the premiere of our Twitch program. Yeah, Gary V style. She's got to kill herself for the placement. Do you even hustle, Jason? I thought I did until I got his master class. No longer. I've learned so much. What if Gary V had a master class? That would be pretty good. Well, I mean, we can make a fake Gary Vee masterclass for one of our pre-recorded segments in the future, perhaps. That's a pretty good idea. Actually, I like that a lot. That's a good idea. We didn't talk about the debates, right? We were getting ready for them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The last episode was the day that they were airing is when we recorded. So we did not talk about the debate.

Chris, you have two minutes. Your opening statement. The debates were hot fire. And those two guys were absolutely unhinged. And it was incredible to watch. And I don't know. I know that I should view it as like, this is the end of society. This is so depressing. But unfortunately, my dark soul found that kind of entertaining and kind of funny. And I left halfway through to go to Air One. So I wasn't even that engaged. I mean, I finished halfway through to go water the lawn. That's how rough it was for me. But I'm leaning more on the other side, the opposite of you. I guess it's the equivalent of when you go over to someone's house and they have Fox News on the television and you're so used to getting your news from Twitter. All of your cool, smart people news sources that when you see somebody watching Fox News or anything like that, you're like, oh my god, I forgot that this is how the majority of our country consumes news. And it just makes you... I had a physical ailment forming from just watching it for a while. It was making me... Just my body was feeling unsure and had an odd tingle to it after watching it. It was just, it fucked me up. So it was kind of like, you know, it was funny to watch, but I just, you know, it was a very unpresidential debate. There was really nothing presidential happening whatsoever. It was just, you know, it was like a high school bully arguing with, you know, the smart nerd that's also too old. No one is going to win. They're both playing two different games. It's just a bunch of horseshit for an hour. Well, it was an hour and a half. That's the crazy part. It was tough. Literally anyone could have done a better job than Joe Biden, unfortunately. Well, I don't think Trumpito was fully on his game. The polls I saw showed Biden killing him, but I think those are kind of meaningless. Yeah, they're pretty meaningless.

It's no longer a debate, and they're talking about the possibility of adding in a mute button because Trump is unable to not talk for five minutes or two minutes. He can't stop himself. It's like Jason in the back room of Cinespace at 3 a.m. Yeah, you always have to get that word in, that little dig or that little remark. And Trump, that's one of the things that Trump is so good at is just like whatever you throw at him, he's got a canned response ready to fly that you don't want to stoop down to his level and play his kindergarten bully game. But you kind of have to a little bit or else he will just beat you at this debate by default. Luckily, Sleepy Joe Biden has already created merch that says, you know, shut up, man. Or whatever his cool quote that went viral. Would you just shut up, man? That says everything that you need. You have just like a... a passive little sloth going up against this like rabid moronic you know tiger who's just going full force gnarly the whole time guns blazing ready to roast you and he's just you know you you gotta hit back with something harder than then hey buddy be quiet that's a bunch of hooey You're making me annoyed, bro. Can you stop? Would you just give me a break? Oh, brother. It was a lot of oh, brothering. But I am happy that absolutely nothing was accomplished, and that's what I expected. So it lived up to all of my expectations. Yeah, nothing was going to happen. We all know exactly what Trump is going to do, and he did. It's just like watching a basketball game or a football game where you're like,

These are the teams, they do this stuff, and this team does that stuff, and then you watch them, and you're like, we knew they were going to rush us the whole time, or I'm using a football term, whatever. We knew they were going to blitz us every play, and they blitzed us every play, and then they won. And you're like, okay, maybe you should have done a little strategy to prevent against that. the best part is watching the like undecided the fact that there are undecided voters in this country is absolutely crazy to me and watching them be like well you know i just i you know i just didn't like what what he said i just didn't like it and you know i'm i you know i just i found that offensive I found it offensive, and that's why I'm going to vote for Donald Trump. I watched that on CNN, and it's just crazy what these people, what these minor issues that people are drawn to make their decision on is just really backwards thinking. Right, right, right. And those undecided people, the people who have no real fire burning inside of them whatsoever, those are the ones who are easily swayed by manipulation in the media and whatever. You know, those are those are the people who make the difference between, you know, I don't know anyone who's personally going to vote for Trump. And, you know, you go to. No, I don't either. Other than my co-host. And, you know, if I go to some, you know, Ku Klux Klan rally in Oklahoma, I'm probably never never going to come in contact with somebody who knows they're going to vote for Biden. But all the people in the middle who are just like they don't like either of them. And they're going to end up voting fiscally Republican just because they hate either of them and both of them and it doesn't matter. That's the dangerous stuff. Show me the emails, Jason. That's what I want. I'm still caught up on that. So if we could move past that, I would be happy. Everyone's bad. The one thing that I was watching was like, the first thing you think of is like, damn, I wish Bernie was here because he at least has a little more piss and vinegar flowing through his veins and he'd be able to square up and essentially break the ankles or cross up.

Trump every once in a while but you know all we all the people that we have on our side of people who are trying to take Trump down are literally just too old like you know Bernie a 42 year old Bernie I would love to see him squaring up against Trump right now and running circles around him but you know Bernie is 82 and not 42 and he's just like he doesn't know what room he's in probably He doesn't. None of these guys know where they are. Look, Trump needs to lose, but man, that debate was a loss for all of us. You know what I mean? That was really what it was. I can't get the hour and a half back. It's worse than podcasting with you. That's false. False and fake news, Chris. My podcast team is awesome. We don't have a guest today. Fuck you, Chris. How long gone this podcast? We do have a guest today. Matthew Schneier, an incredible New York resident, a friend of mine. One of the most tremendous residents that you guys have. He's a tremendous resident of New York City, but he's a features writer of New York Magazine and The Cut, formerly of the New York Times. He's a very funny, very bright guy, and I can't wait to see him and TJ Duel. You know what I mean? In a New York versus L.A. breakdown. And I want to ask him about Jewish food specifically because he's a big celebrator. Jewish food? Wasn't it just a Jewish holiday yesterday or today? It was. Yom Kippur was last week. I think I'm saying it right. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, so let's give him a call and talk about Jewish holidays and the presidential debate. Shalom. 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 all our peers, our listeners, our friends, our colleagues, maybe even your parents if they're freaky. And if you're doing anything in the world... writing, taking pictures. I do topless boxing. You need a website. Exactly. A website that works, that does what it's supposed to do, that allows you to be creative, but also business-minded. Jason, there's one place to go for that, Squarespace. Yeah, Chris, I'm over here. I'm modifying calculators and putting Claude inside of them so you could cheat at school. And I just want a place where I could have everything all in one place. I can have the SEO tools.

So those future graduates can find me and, you know, I'm able to accept quote unquote donations for my services that might be gray area. You know what I mean? And then email campaigns. Hey, I got a new, you know, 2.3 version upgrade. Boom, boom, boom. Get the analytics going. Raise some money. Show your investor all of your cool analytics of what's going on. They're going to want to get in early, and we can use Blueprint AI to make your website look as professional as your competition, if not more. 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. All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Quince. Jason, the temps are warming up. It's getting hot out there. Summer always changes how I get dressed. I need pieces that feel lighter, more breathable, and that are just easy, but still put together. I don't want to look like a slob. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high-quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Breathable linen and soft organic cottons. Well-made basics, but without the luxury markups. That rare balance where everything feels elevated. but still effortless. Yeah, Chris, linen season is here. I wore a linen blazer to dinner a few nights ago in the warm California sun. But, you know, you got that Italy trip coming up this summer and quality European linen pants and shirts. 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. 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. Well, hello. Oh, hello. What an entrance, this guy. I mean, I heard that this was audio only. It is audio only, but you can turn your camera upside down, but thank you for giving us a peek. We got the screenshot we need. I mean, this is like fucking dark. I'm going to need you to throw a little Photoshop on this bitch because I have not taken a shower. I mean... Matt, hold on. Matt, Matthew, hold on. You haven't taken a shower. It's 5 p.m. New York time, basically. It's late in the day, Kang. What's going on with you? We're working hard, you know? Who got time for that shit? You don't have time to shower. You know, I make showering and physical fitness a priority in my life, so I'd love to know what your priorities are besides stack and guap. I mean, this is why you're such a stud, and I'm here in the minds of journalism. I didn't. Do not. Please don't call Chris a stud. Well, I got last night. I went live on Instagram with Jeremy O'Harris and he claimed that I've been gay baiting lately. And I said that I've been gay baiting since I can remember. I was going to say, you've been gay baiting since the moment I became aware of you. Down by the dogs.

Matthew, could you elaborate a little bit on some of his schemes and strategies that you've seen him use in his gay baiting? I mean, you know, it all took a turn when he decided to get into shape, clean himself up, get the hotel room in LA. You know, it's all part of a long game, a con. I'm a con artist, that's for sure. I mean, listen, 100 episodes deep, I think it's working. I mean, have you listened to this podcast? Every time a friend of mine is on it, I listen. Well, that makes me sound like a real Jewish friend. Sometimes I listen if it's someone I don't know. We'll take that. We've had a lot of your friends on, I feel like. Do you feel like we're late to you? Or do you think this is the right time for you? Do you wish you'd been on earlier? Well, you know, I hope you were saving me until you got the kinks ironed out. And, you know, for all anybody knows, I haven't been available for these last, you know, 36 weeks. For the last six months, you've been unavailable. I'm unavailable. But here we are now, the day we've had from the beginning. I mean, I, you know, I love your work and just you as a person, but I want to hear about Jewish holidays from you. Because I feel like I, you know, as an Anglo, as not chosen one, and Jason, I was obviously not chosen for other reasons as well. It's not obvious. I've been confused for a Jewish person my whole life. I think I sort of assumed that you were of the tribe, but it is true that you were uncommonly tall for a Semite. Yeah, that's my one tell, as they say. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean... So, I want to break down the hierarchy of Jewish holidays for me to understand. What's the most important? What's the best food? Even though the food's kind of all bad, but I want to hear from an expert. Well, this is really putting me on the spot because I am what's euphemistically called sort of culturally Jewish, which means that I'm going to hell for my non-observance of all the sort of significant shit. But as far as I understand it,

And I did, you know, I grew up Jewish, I was raised just my family. You know, the most important holidays are the high holidays, Rosh Hashanah, which is New Year, and then Yom Kippur, which was just on Monday, which was the Day of Atonement, where you fast and then, you know, to atone for your sins, to absolve yourself. Day of Atonement sounds like some AA stuff. So let me just understand, are you, are you... Or a hardcore man. Or a hardcore band. Yeah, I mean, so what are you actually doing? Like, what is the actual act? Or is it more of a meal with your family and everybody's together? Well, you're supposed to go to Temple, which I did on Zoom or whatever, you know, Zoom-ish platform this year. You're not supposed to work. It's a very serious holiday. You have to take it off. But let me ask you a question. Did you take it off? Let's be honest. Yes, no, I really did. Yom Kippur, I actually do take seriously, I have to say. I don't know if it's a funny story, but it's my first job out of college. I was working at the New Yorker, and as it happened, my first day was Yom Kippur. And I hadn't realized when we were negotiating. I guess, I mean, I should have known, but I didn't know. And it was this thing where I was like, oh shit, I can't. I can't ask for my first day off. Like this is my first job, you know, full-time job basically ever. I guess I got to do it. I guess I got to just assume that God is going to understand. And I, you know, sort of screwed myself up and I made my apologies to my parents and my Lord and whatever else. And I went. And of course I was like assisting, I was an assistant and I was assisting three women, all of whom were Jewish or Jewish enough. And all of whom had taken the day off and had never thought to tell me. My punishment for working on the highest holiday of the year was that I literally had nothing to do and no one to do it for and just wandered around confused. That's a lot of time to think about your sins, though, which maybe that's God's plan, actually. You know what I mean? I think that might be right. I mean, that is what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to really think about...

uh, you know, the people you've wronged and they, they go through this whole litany. There's, there's a number of, of sins, you know, we have, we have coveted, we have committed blasphemy, we have mocked, we have something, we have something else, uh, you know, and you're supposed to kind of beat your chest as you, as you recite them along with the rabbi. And, you know, I don't, I don't think it goes as far as AA does. You know, you don't have to sort of call people and make specific amends. I think there's something about like dropping pieces of bread in like a river, but. I think, wait, I think you're confusing that with the balance, but continue. But, you know, then you fast and you hope that God is going to inscribe you in the book of life for the next year. And you break fast with a traditional Ashkenazi meal of, like, bagels and schmear and lox. Kogol. I like a noodle kogol. Many people do not like a noodle kogol. I feel like you're leading with all the good stuff. Keep going. You know, I mean, we're not like a super, super, you know, sort of home cookie family. Like we, I picked it all up from Russ and Daughters. So it was kind of all good. I mean, it would not have been as good. Wait, are you from, you're from New York, aren't you? Born and raised, baby. New York City. Wow, this is very cool. You might be the only one we've ever had on the program, Jason. What do you think? I might be the only one that's ever been. We've had other Jewish guests on, Chris. Not Jewish guests. I mean, born and raised in New York. Copy that. That's my bad. He might be the only one, yeah. What neighborhood are we talking about? Upper West? First of all, that's a hate crime. Not all Jews are on the Upper West Side. I'm sorry. I'm trying to understand your culture. But Chris, you're sweet for assuming. Yeah, exactly. I was born at London Terrace. Wow, this guy is flexing all over me. Jason doesn't know what that is, but the birds live there, sweetie. The historic home of Debbie Harry. A bunch of great people have lived there over years. We were in the rental tower, not the sale tower, but be that as it may, 24th and 9th, I think. You didn't have to do that. You let people assume. The honesty of journalists bothers me. You know what I mean? You could have let people just guess for themselves. I'm laying on the line for you.

Thank you. So you were born in London Terrace, which is incredibly chic. Were your parents in the arts? No, not at all. My dad's a doctor. My mom sells real estate. You know, was a social worker before I was born, but then had to afford to raise me in New York. So gave it all up to become a real estate broker. Sorry, mom. And from there, you know, my great shame is that I don't actually remember that apartment we moved when I was, I think, like... Nine months old, 10 months old. So I don't have any sort of visual memories of London Terrace. But from there, we moved down to City Hall. And then from there to the sort of last glory days of Tribeca, which I feel like I have to specify because Tribeca now is so douchey and so like bankery and just like full of shit. Did you go to high school in Tribeca? No, no, no, no. I thank you so much for mentioning. I did not have the opportunity to go to Stuyvesant, the city's most elite public magnet school. I went to high school at, I went to Friends on 16th Street. Wow. This is really a New York tale. Jason's discombobulated. He's from Orange County. He doesn't understand these words. So these are buildings that you're saying? And how does this work? We prefer institutions. Because I've seen a lot of Gossip Girl, not all of it. And some of these names are starting to strike out to me. Honestly, I can't imagine that anyone is still listening to this podcast. I think this may have been the most alienating intro you've ever done. Russ and his daughters are the only ones still listening. That is not true. This is information people need. We like to get the scoop behind the artists. We're not looking for fluffy stuff. We're looking for hard-hitting, behind-the-scenes, what-drives-the-man kind of talk. Well, here we go. I was ruined in early childhood, and I've just carried it with me forward to present it. Did you go to high school with any celebs? Did I go to high school with any celebs?

Celeb offspring. Yeah, yeah, celeb offspring. I'm trying to think. I mean, I briefly overlapped with your friend of mine, Lena Dunham, but she's a couple years younger than me, and that was in middle school. Funny you bring up our queen, Lena. I actually met her at the Sunset Tower just a few weeks ago. I mean, name drop ahoy. Chris, did you hear it? No. Honestly, it was great. I'm just saying. I didn't know her then. I've only hated on her because of her output. But now that I know her personally and she was very nice, I have to change my tune, I think. Now that he knows her one time, he has to start saving her. It's a classic Hollywood story. It is. Exactly. A one-to-one interaction, though, does change my perception of people. Because if they're a monster one-to-one, they're actually a monster. Chris, in addition to being a super spreader, is also superficial. That's true. I'm a lot of supers, and those are the two leading. He's a very super guy. I'm a super guy. Were you hitting the New York City nightlife scene in high school? I was hitting, I just want to say for the record that I think Lena's a lovely girl and has only ever been wonderful to me. I don't care to be taken out of context with your fake news bullshit on there. That is not fake news. That is just my personal take. We'll remove that statement in post. Carry on. Were you hitting the clubs? I wasn't so much into the clubs. I was the world's least convincing punk in high school. That was my vibe. Very cool. What are we talking about? This was back in the day, but it was that very St. Mark's-y, spin the cube, manic panic, bad piercings, bondage pants. Walk me through the piercings. There weren't that many. you know, sort of famously had the original septum ring back when everybody was still horrified by them before they became fashionable. You know, Matthew, I also had a septum ring, so I'm glad we have that in common. Is that right? Do you still have it? No, I don't. I don't. And I was really disturbed when they came back as like a chic thing you would see on models. I was so confused. I mean, I just remember like, I got mine when I was like 15, I want to say 15, 16.

And listen, obviously I did not have the first septum ring, but they were rare enough that people used to move away from me on the subway. People found them so viscerally repellent. So you were a badass, snotty little punk. You would throw up the reversed peace sign, British style, to say piss off when somebody moves to the other side of the subway car, I'm hoping. Well, the thing was, yes, that's what I wanted to be, but I also wasn't ready to give up. being a high-achieving, neurotic type A student body president type. Hold on, you're the student body president in bondage pants with a septum piercing. She does it all. I have to give credit where credit's due. That is the beauty of Friends Seminary, a 60-person-per-class downtown private school. Welcome to New York City, Chris. It's like this every day. Everybody was confused, but nobody was ready to protest, so there we were. What kind of tunes were you into, like, the classics? Was it, like, a Clash kind of vibe? Or was this, like, a New York Ramones, you know, what was your North Star? Or was it, like, a no effects type of situation? No, no, no, thank you. That's a little below us. I was very, like, New York 77 scene. I mean, I loved, like, Richard Hell. I loved television. I liked Ramones. New York Dolls, et cetera. Yeah, that sort of thing. So, I mean, you know, again, it's like I alternated that with show tunes, so it was always a little bit of a kind of schizophrenic moment. But I maintain that you can contain multitudes and just have space in your heart for both. You know, this is very cool. I actually didn't, I did not know this about you at all. I had no idea. You buried it deep. No, I'm forever threatening to show people pictures of myself in those years because I feel like I was actually kind of cool then and no one believes it now. So sort of studious and professional have I become. Were you going to shows off? Were you a CBGB's mainstay or was it more of a look?

It was a little of both. I didn't go to CBs that often. I was friends with a crew of people that were much more legitimately into the scene than I was. We would go to shows, but they would be these random shows for bands I'd never heard of at the Jewish Cultural Center in Midwood because it was the only place they would rent out a ballroom for $6 to whatever idiot kids. Jason and I have been to many places like that in our lives, so we understand. I've been to a lot of suburban basements for that same kind of effect, which doesn't really exist in New York, though, so it's a little harder. Some Ukrainian cultural centers? Yeah, things like that. I mean, ABC No Rio was a squat that used to have shows. It was disgusting, and someone was always pissing in a corner on the floor. Actually, I used to live right near ABC No Rio, and I hate it. I truly hate it. I truly hate it, but I wasn't there in the heyday. I thought it... Is it not gone? No, it's gone now. It's gone now. Well, not my first apartment, but my second apartment in New York in Lower East Side was right near there. There's a Blue Bottle next to it now. Oh, sure. Things have changed. It's A-Life, Rivington Club, and Blue Bottle. You know the block, I'm sure. Yeah. I mean, listen, I was always a dabbler. You're going to get letters from people saying, I never saw that kid at ABC No Real. You know, when you could fit it in around AP classes, I would do it again. Wow. What a flex. I love this. Jason, you're talking to two high schools. Well, I dropped out of high school. Jason made it out, but I think barely. You know, B's and C's. That's about right. Did you go to college in New York or did you leave? I left. I went, I mean, I left barely. I went to Yale. So I was in Connecticut, which was, you know, might as well have been an express subway right away. How far is it actually, an hour and a half? Hour 40, I think. Okay, yeah. What's the vibe in New Haven? Were you wearing a lot of sweaters then? Did you switch the look up? Did I switch the look up? My look in college was honestly so bad. It is really like an ongoing humiliation to me. Because, you know, you're finding yourself. It's a transition. I was mixing in the things I used to wear with the things I thought I was supposed to be wearing. I mean, it just was not.

It was not what it was supposed to be. What is the look at Yale in general, though? Like, at that time, is it a little buttoned up or am I just making that up? I think that's more sort of the perception than the reality, at least when I was there. I mean, there wasn't any one particular kind of overarching thing. I mean, obviously, you get a lot of kids coming from, you know, the Andover, Exeter, St. Paul's of the world, and they have one particular look. But you also have a lot of, like, idiot New York City. kids and whatever else. The first time I ever heard of J-Press was in New Haven. There was a J-Press on God York Street, I want to say, which is sort of what I imagined Yale would look like. It didn't really, but you could find that corner of it if you wanted. I guess, honestly, you just had to go to J-Press. Literally on the corner, it's the J Press store. So you can just walk in. So they have a juice press in Connecticut? Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah, it's crazy. If you need to get a shake after your morning workout, you know what I mean? After comparative literature, you just do a pump and then you get a shake. I can see Matt's whole schedule now. Yale's starting to sound pretty good after all. Yeah, it does sound pretty good. Did you make a lot of friends there that you're still in touch with or do you think you have moved on? No, I mean, I made some good friends for life there. I mean, there are people that I still work with, people that I still see all the time. You know, I mean, everybody basically moves to New York if you're in the kind of writing, journalism, media sort of corner of the world. So in a sense, I've never left for better or worse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, if your first job was at the New Yorker, I mean, you know, it sounds like you were in a feeder program. Well, the secret, slightly trashy truth is that my first job at The New Yorker, maybe I shouldn't admit this, talk about letting the lie take over, but my first job at The New Yorker was in ad sales. Wow, this guy, wow. So you were blasting cigs, just working the phones in the basement?

It was the 20th floor or the 21st floor. I don't remember which floor it was. But yeah, basically. But the New Yorker ads are funny. What are you selling? Well, I was selling, maybe in a kind of preamble to the rest of my life, I was working with the team that sold fashion ads. Not because I had any particular fashion interest, but that was just sort of where I was assigned. The summer that I graduated, there was a very competitive job open at The New Yorker in editorial. And like literally everybody else in New York, I was desperate for it and I scrabbled for it and I submitted samples and edit tests and interviews and whatever. I went through the whole process. And eventually, after I think it was several weeks, maybe it was shorter than that, but in my memory, it's certainly several weeks, they said to me, you seem great. We're giving someone else this job, but... there's a job open upstairs if you want it. And at that point, you know, I'd moved to the city, I'd moved into an apartment with two roommates. I needed to make some money. It sort of sounded like we'd all be one big happy family or so I imagined. And so I took it and I was grateful for it. And, you know, only in retrospect, I think like, I wonder if they were telling me I should like probably never be a journalist again, you know, trying to shut me off. Were you good at it though? I feel like you could be pretty good at that. No, I mean, I was an assistant. So, I mean, I was good at assisting, but I wasn't, you know, I cannot lie. I was not closing the deals. I was not. We used to call them the luxury squares that ran in the kind of front of book. We used to really sell those pretty hard. But I mean, I remember I was on all the calls and I helped put together all the decks and whatever else. And it was always with the fashion people. They were always like, we just don't understand. This magazine is great, and it has such a huge subscriber base, and so many people get it, and everybody who gets it is incredibly wealthy, and it's exactly our market. It's just like, where the fuck are the pictures? And where are my credits? Yes, there's no credits. There's no credits in The New Yorker, unfortunately. And they just couldn't get their heads around it. So it was a tough sell, although I have to say they seem to be doing all right now, because half the time...

I get The New Yorker in the mail, it's like Bottega Veneta on the back. I know. Well, I think it's more, I feel like stuff like that, I feel like those kind of brands, certain brands just want to be included in that, you know, it's a look for them. You know, so it's like, well, just, this is not going to do much for us except make us feel good, which I think is honestly why a lot of people in general subscribe to The New Yorker. You know what I mean? I don't know how many people are making it through every issue cover to cover. It's aspirational to subscribe to The New Yorker, I think. Well, listen, I think it makes sense for a subscriber. I think it makes sense for an advertiser. If you're advertising in Vogue, the people who read Elle and Bazaar and Marie Claire and whatever else, you don't need to be in all of that. There's a different audience that reads The New Yorker. But now I'm giving you my pitch from the year 2000 and I don't even remember what. You're right, though. You're totally right. It is a different person, for sure. Is it the most popular, is it the most subscribed to title at Condé Nast, or is Vogue number one? That is a good... Question. I think when I was there, the Vogue rate base was slightly higher, but that may have changed in the intervening years. You'd have to fact check that. Matthew, you said you weren't really into fashion back in the day, but I assume that you are now. Was there a moment where everything turned for you, or is it just kind of a gradual appreciation? It kind of like fell into place more than anything I sort of thought out in particular. I mean, I was never into kind of fashion, but I was always into clothes. I was always into sort of, you know, the way how you present yourself and what that means about you and what community that puts you in and what that leads people to assume about you and whether or not that's actually true. I mean, that was sort of part of my thing with punk is that I love the look, but I also sort of love that, you know, people would see me with the... you know, my bad bleach job and my bondage pants and whatever else and sort of assume that I was, you know, X, Y, or Z thing. And, you know, actually I was also this other thing and this other thing and this other thing. So I was always into the kind of like presentational aspects of it and the sort of psychodynamics of it. You like doing the old switcheroo. Yeah. I always thought it was kind of fun. I thought it was, it was sort of, it was, you know, and we were always sort of like.

scrashing through Goodwill and thrift stores and vintage stores. I have never claimed to be, and I've always been very honest that I was not that kid that subscribed to Vogue. I did not rip out Calvin Klein ads and put them on my wall. I cannot tell you chapter and verse of every Perry Ellis collection or whatever people are supposed to be excited about. You didn't ask for a sewing machine for your 10th birthday? In fact, I briefly did have a sewing machine, and I tried to sew. But I was extremely bad at it. And honestly, it was more because a friend of mine's father owned a sewing machine store, if you can believe that, in the East Village, which might actually even still be there. Gizmo on 2nd Avenue and 7th Street, I think. Wow. I feel like if something were to survive, that could be what is still there. That wouldn't totally shock me. Gizmo is a very cool name for that store, too. He was an absolute mensch. It was a family of Persian emigres. His daughter was my friend, Golris. We were in high school together. And he just made it look really cool somehow. And so I took one sewing class and was extremely bad at it and never sewed again. But I did. I still have somewhere in a closet this truly hideous pair of lemon-printed pants I made. Lemon? That's a choice right there. I think fabric alone, you had a vision. Look, Harry Styles could need those. I mean, I was going to say, your boy Tom Brown has, I feel like, done lemon embroidery time and time again. I think you're thinking of a tennis ball. But yes, there's been some lemons in the collection, I agree. And I'm scared of big prints, I have to be honest with you. Jason and I are both into muted color palettes, so I think we could use some experimentation. I don't think, to be clear, that I'm going to be breaking out those lemon pants anytime soon, but I respect the teenage me that thought that was the right choice. But would you consider yourself a quiet dresser in the year 2020? I've gotten only more quieter as I've gone along. I have sort of gone neutral, and I think that that's the right thing for everybody. I don't think it's the right thing for everybody, but I think that that is absolutely the right thing for me. Why is it the right thing for you?

I just think, you know, you get more out of people, you get more out of the world if you don't necessarily need to sort of scream your presence quite so loudly. I find that it's always better to be slightly overlooked than overnoticed. Do you have a uniform? No, I don't think so. Okay. White t-shirt, jeans. See, this kind of stuff is hard for Jason because he's so tall. So people are going to notice him anyway. So when he wears his short shorts, it's extra noticeable, which is something to consider. Yeah, what do you think about – I don't want to bring up the big inseam wars because we have a presidential race going on. But I think this is arguably more important. But what is your inseam looking like? Do you wear shorts? Are you anti-shorts? I'm not anti-shorts. I'm fine with a short. Be honest. I don't mind what I guess the world thinks of as a short short. I do like a five-inch usually. There we go. Great answer. Some New Yorkers are really anti-short. I don't know if you're familiar with that line of thinking. I don't know it as a specific New York phenomenon. I know men are often very... afraid of shorts and you know to be totally honest i have like wild chicken legs i mean i just have no no calves whatsoever i'm a hard gainer for calves so it's it's not that i think shorts look great on me in fact they they don't and i probably should stick to pants but you know I respect the work of a short. I think in New York there might be an aversion to shorts because you're walking around the city. You could get splashed with some subway sewer juice. That's where antibodies come from. I'm not afraid of that. That's a good point. That leads me to my next question about your leg workout. What are we doing? Are we skipping leg day? Say it ain't so, Matthew.

In the good old days of a decade ago, we never would have. But, I mean, you know what it's like to build a calf. I mean, it's not a possibility. No, it's a lot of work. And it brings me back to that famous episode of MTV, you know, Real Life, where the guy got the calf implants, which I'm sure you remember. In fact, I don't. You don't? This is like a classic MTV. You're familiar with that show. It's called True Life, MTV True Life. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, I know True Life. So MTV is like a music video, but they also have other shows. Yeah, just to be clear. Yes, there's a famous episode where this guy was really buff and looked great, but he just couldn't build the calves. He just couldn't get it done no matter how much weight he lifted. A lot of it is in the genes. Nature and nurture can only take you so far. Oh, that's true. And my father is also a chicken-legged man. Wow, I don't know where I got my shapely legs from. Maybe my mom, since she was a Rockette, I feel like she might have in her day. Better to have a chicken leg than a hefty leg, I say. Yeah, I agree. I think you're on the right side of history, Matthew. I appreciate that. No way. famously did the big deep dive story on our arch nemesis podcast the daily i was i was wondering which of my stories was going to be your arch nemesis i was thinking like is it going to be guillain maxwell is that like no no no we're big guillain fans on this part we actually celebrate guillain's work guillain we like the daily i can't i can't back but i mean did you so just you broke that the story of his relationship correct that was the first time that had been released in the world uh I wish I could say yes, but I think Page Six did an item about it. I don't know that anybody had spoken to them together about it, and I don't think that they had acknowledged it further than to just not deny the... I think it was Page Six. It was a couple months ago that story, so I'd have to go back and look.

It had been floating around media gossip circles for several months at that time. I remember hearing it. It fascinates me to no end. It really fascinates me. Maybe I'm just living in a different time. I just feel like I've never heard that before. I've never heard of that actually happening before in real life. Is this by erasure I'm hearing? What? Is this by erasure I'm hearing? It is. No. Yeah, no, it's not by erasure. I'm just saying it just seemed, I think it was because it was scandalized by like page six, you know what I mean? So it's like, it becomes this thing. I've just never heard of a man leaving his husband for a woman. I just never heard of it before. Like, you know, in a public forum like that. I have to say, actually, it was like the single most respectful page six item I've ever read in my entire life. I wonder, I'm surprised they were that interested in that. Does that surprise you? Or is it just because it is juicy? So you think they ran it? Yeah, I think, I mean, The Daily was such a, sorry to you guys, but wild phenomenon. You know, I think they wanted anything they could get. I mean, you're going to really have some editing to do if I go back and it wasn't actually page six, but I'm pretty sure it was. That would make sense. Yeah, but I mean, I guess you usually hear about, you know, somebody doing a switcheroo the other way around, but I guess, you know, not so often you hear about... a man leaving his husband for another woman. It's usually the other way around. I am here to support all switcheroos. Look, this podcast is pro-switcheroo. I'm just saying, it's not a negative thing. We'd love to switch on these hosts. Yeah, exactly. Luckily, we don't have any producers on this podcast, so there's no fear of Jason leaving me for another man or a woman. But I don't think that the... It was just fascinating to me. And that story, I feel like that story did numbers, right? That was like a big deal. Yeah, I think in our corner of the world it was. Listen, it was a really fun story to do. It was a weirdly kind of dangerous story for me to do, having literally just left the Times to turn around and, you know, kind of dig into them. But I think... Was that frowned upon by the higher-ups? I don't... I think...

Well, the higher-ups of the Times? I don't have any idea about that. I mean, it seems like it could be. I get it. It's treacherous territory. Yeah, I mean, I think I certainly felt that story was fair. I think generally they felt that story was fair. I think whatever complaints they have to make were not about. unfairness or certainly untruthfulness. That is an uncorrected story, I'm happy to say, as most of mine are. Oh, wow. Had to flex on him. He stays uncorrected, Jason. You heard that. Even your piece about natural wine? Yeah, listen, I stand by that. No, listen, this is going to sound so insane to anybody who does not come up in the sort of very specific hothouse culture of a newspaper, but... When I got to the Times in, whenever it was, 2014, they drum into you such a mortal terror of corrections. I mean, it is truly like a big brother Orwellian, you know, there is an omniscient, omnipotent God, furious Old Testament, mean motherfucking God looking over you and like God help you if you get. any single correction. And especially with the New York Times more than any other place, I think. I mean, the readers just live to write in complaints. And they should. I mean, it keeps everybody honest and so forth. But so it truly put the fear of God in me. And I have had corrections over time when I was there. I mean, as almost everybody has. But you really, really work to keep them to an absolute bare minimum. I am never prouder than when I do a story that pisses people off, but there is nothing they can say is inaccurate or incorrect. This is why we write, Matthew. Those highs. To flex on the hose, you know? Exactly. But we can talk about Ghislaine. We've talked about that a lot on this podcast, actually. What was it?

I mean, what was that like for you? Was it fun or was it just darker and darker as you went on? What was the specific angle of that Ghislaine story, if you don't mind? Well, I started on Ghislaine. I'd basically just gotten to New York Magazine. I'd made the leap from the Times. It was summer of 2019. Smart move, by the way. Thanks very much. I shot out of the gate with a story about RuPaul that pissed off every drag queen in New York. I remember that. I'm not even a drag queen. I do remember that. Why did it piss off every queen in New York? It was this big package about the drag race economy, the drag race ecosystem, and it included a ranking of, I think, every queen who had ever been on the show. I mean, not to throw anybody out on the bus, but it literally just was not the part of it that I worked on. I mean, I saw it and I read it. And generally speaking, I think I agreed with it. But, you know, it was this big group project. And they asked me to write the kind of intro essay for it and talk to RuPaul about it, which I did. Had you spoken to RuPaul? Had you interviewed RuPaul before? Yeah, a couple of times because I wrote a piece earlier in the life of Drag Race about how the whole fashion industry was obsessed with it when I was at the Times. And then Rue was one of the, I think, co-chairs of the Met Gala when I was covering that one year at the Times. So, I mean, we didn't know each other, but I'd interviewed him before. And because the package was this big group project, I mean, it was a real lift for the Culture Section magazine. there was no one byline on it. It was sort of just an un-byline package. And my byline was one of the few that did appear because I wrote this one specific intro essay. And so all of the queens were super pissed off that...

Anybody had the temerity to rank them, which is ridiculous. They, I'm sure, rank themselves and one another behind closed doors constantly. But they didn't care for that to be made public. And obviously, with all rankings, anybody you ask is going to have a different one. So everybody had critiques, fair or unfair. And mine, of course, is the name. that's most easy to find in that whole thing. There was a blowback for a minute. It seems to have passed, and hopefully I'm not reigniting it now. It's like when I tweet about Taylor Swift. You learn to put a star in for certain characters so that people can't find you. You tweet it, and then you sign off for a few days, and hopefully by the time you're back, the storm has passed. I was new to New York Magazine. What had happened? I guess... I guess Epstein had just been arrested and had obviously not yet died, and... Died? Interesting choice of term. Quote, unquote. Professionally neutral over here. I think it's incontrovertible to say that he is dead. Well... Further than that, I don't specify, but... The Ghislaine story they gave to me because I was sort of on that kind of nexus of glamour and social life and a little bit of fashion and a little bit of trashiness and a little bit of culture was sort of very where I was. You're a no-brainer for that piece, I'll say. I appreciate that, I think. Or maybe that's an insult. I still haven't totally figured it out. It was sort of before I think anybody realized how deep all this went and how kind of tangled a web it all was. And my story was, it wasn't the first time she'd ever been written about, but it was, I think, the first big piece that really kind of tried to give a sense of her life in New York during the years that she was in New York.

you know, with and then also a bit sort of post Epstein. And then this kind of disappearance where she vanished. And a lot of the first piece, because it became a series, but a lot of the first piece was people who'd known her at parties just saying like, you know, of course we had no idea what she did. You know, it's just, it's not done to ask what anybody does. You know, you just assume that if they're at the same luncheon that, you know, you're kind of the same class and, you know, we'd never dirty our hands by wondering, you know, how that came to be. But I mean, I feel like people kind of glaze over the fact that her dad was this like, I mean, basically a media scion in the UK, correct? Absolutely. I mean, owned the Mirror, you know, made a play for some American papers at some point. I mean, was sort of fancied himself a kind of Murdoch competitor. And I think for a minute was a Murdoch competitor. I mean, you know, he certainly didn't. he came to a much more ignominious end, you know, and, and it was rating the pension fund and all sorts of things. But that was like a huge media story of the 1980s. And it's, you know, it's when you realize that like everybody's vantage point, except the real, real lifers can be quite narrow. I mean, I wasn't super familiar with him until researching that story. And then you go back, I mean, there's like an amazing gossipy, fun, crimey, New York Magazine cover story from the mid to late 80s about him. And, you know, and she makes a little appearance and, you know, it points out that his yacht was called the Lady Ghislaine after her. I mean, there was great stuff in that. And if you go back, if you go to the old Times coverage, all that stuff, I mean, that's the shit that I absolutely love about journalism is just sort of like rifling through the archives and doing the research and finding the stuff that sort of... buried, but in no way extinct. And this was sort of an interesting story for that. I mean, there was so much paperwork everywhere. I mean, court paperwork and, you know. Oh, wow. I didn't think about that part. Yeah, like really. Were people willing, in this instance, were people fairly willing to talk to you or did you run into a lot of roadblocks?

No, I mean, people were real cagey. People were certainly cagey, which I understand. I mean, and, you know, all credit and eternal thanks to those who weren't. I mean, there are always people that you find eventually that are just like, you know, say fuck it and are happy to speak on the record. And, you know, there's a special corner of heaven for them. Do you think with people like that, do you think it's because they feel, do you think they feel like it's been... the right thing to do or do you think they've been scorned or scorched by the person in question? What leads someone to crack when they know they probably shouldn't? Besides, obviously, your amazing questioning. I think it's everything. I mean, I think it's that they think they're doing something. just and are on the side of right. I think oftentimes they're trying to fuck someone. I think other times they may not admit it themselves, but they just want to see their name in print. I mean, all of these are... excellent and exemplary reasons to speak to me, and I welcome them all. I'm very happy to triangulate however many of them I possibly can. I do think that part, I always find that really interesting. But I didn't think about the name and print thing, which does, I forget that in some instances that could be a driving force. It's not for everybody, but there certainly are people that I've covered that wanted saw themselves as extremely worthy of coverage, and in many cases they were, but are looking to sort of help you help them. And as long as you as the journalist are maintaining your own objectivity and writing the story that you want to write and you think the facts lead you to, then there you go. Do you find it difficult to stay objective in something like this that's so polarizing and also gets so much news? I mean, it's just everywhere. It's like unavoidable to be influenced a little bit. Are you able to just put your head down? You know, I do my best to put my head down. I never wanted to be an opinion writer. Must be nice. Well, it's nice and it's not nice because, you know, people love reading takes. And I just, I don't...

really have takes. Every so often I have a take, but it's usually a dumb take. I honestly don't understand how your mind works like that. I don't understand how people... I'm just so quick to react to things that I can't even imagine what it's like on the other measured side. Well, I mean, I react to plenty of things, but it's not the job, and I never thought it was the job, and I never thought anybody wanted my opinion. I, of course, think they're perfect, unimpeachable opinions, but it was always clear to me that what I was being hired for was not the perfect sanctity of my genius thoughts. Well, that felt like an attack, but continue, please. no i mean i think that that that just seems that seems very very difficult to me but obviously that's personal you know what i mean but that that part of it seems seems very difficult especially when there's like crime involved you know what i mean which there's like a right or wrong objective issue there it's not like do i like this painting or do i like this music you know well but it's also like listen you know i'm i'm not the cops and i'm not the court so it's i i could be by someone's crime, and I very well may be, but my job is not to be judged during execution. My job is just to try to figure out what the story is and tell it in an impartial way. When I'm reporting, I have a sort of weird remit because I also have been and sometimes still am a critic, and that's a totally different skill set. We should talk about criticism because people are saying it's dying, but doesn't that happen every 10 years? I think it's always dying, and then somebody else comes and, you know, pumps new life into it. And it's, you know, it's never, it may always be dying, but it's never dead. Who was talking about that, Jason? Jonah, our last episode? I think he was talking about how rappers are the best. They seem to accept and like criticism more than any other genre of music he's ever covered. Because they were, you know, nobody in their circles ever shoots them straight and they're just, you know, hoping to get...

you know a real honest take and and use it to grow as an artist versus be pissed off about it which i was surprised to hear i didn't i didn't think that was going to be the take that you know yeah if you're if you're the kind of person who has no problem you know shooting somebody straight giving them some raw info that they might not feel happy about as a means of bettering that person's career or or output in the long run you know those people need to be able to do it still Look, I back criticism 100%, but what kind of criticism are we talking about? Are you doing, is it television, movies, music, theater? Hopefully food. I've done, I mean, I've done a couple different types. I mean, way back in the day when I was at style.com, I was one of the runway critics, so I was doing a lot of fashion criticism. How could I forget about your legendary stint at style.com? My God, I should have led with that. The greatest website that ever existed. The greatest website that Condé Nast ruined. They really did. That's where I got my start. I was given an opportunity there, and that's where I was given a little leeway to spout my bullshit. I will be forever thankful. So who was your editor there? Was it Noah? Noah, yeah. Okay, so Noah was my successor. Noah took the job when I left for the Times. I didn't realize that. Chris, what were you writing about back then on Style.com? literally whatever i wanted um what was that thing called they had matt it was like a it was like a contributor thing they had where it was like people all over the globe and there was oh my god yes yes yes yes but i i basically just like took it seriously and did it every week and i always had original photos and like it really i just put a lot of work into it i think no one else did It was basically what I understood. It was like Virgil Abloh would post once every six months. That's not who it actually was, but you know what I mean? It's like that kind of thing. You're the only person dorky enough to take it seriously. But honestly, the thing that's heartbreaking is that all of that content is gone now. As far as I can tell, between men.style.com and style.com, I was in that ecosystem for, I think, six years.

Everything I did for them is basically gone. Talk about erasure. The Wayback Machine. I mean, yeah, I forgot. Somebody who used to work for me actually screenshot a lot of that for me at one point. I had it somewhere. But yeah, it's strange that that's all good. Did you work on the Men's Vogue, the print version? Not the Men's Vogue, but the style.com backslash print was its incredibly weird name. I forgot about that. I was the deputy on Style.com. And I love that magazine. I maintain that that was a good magazine. How many issues were there? Like three or four? No, I think by the end there was like seven or eight. I mean, I left before the end, but I personally worked on at least four or five. Which, I mean, they must have had a print run of about 11 issues. And, you know, I have them now. And, you know, we'll keep them forever. But I don't know that you could find another soul on Earth who hasn't. Maybe you do, but I doubt it. First of all, I don't. I do have some full... I'm missing a few issues of Index, my favorite magazine of all time. But I do have almost a full collection of those that I've pieced together over the years. But I don't... I buy magazines still like that. I buy a lot of old ones still, but I don't have that fire burning to put together the whole collection that I did when I was younger. I don't know that I would have it. I'm not a big magazine collector. I love old magazines and it's such a wild pleasure and mindfuck to go through them, but I'm not someone who has reams and reams and reams of old paper. You're saving the trees one man at a time. I already have so many fucking books. I don't have any space in my apartment to collect and eventually have to move. What are you going to do with the books, though? Are you going to start a library? Are you going to donate them? Are you going to hoard them? I was about to say they're worthless. They're not worthless, but they're not collectibles. They're books for reading.

And I'm happy to have them, but honestly, I honestly don't know how I could ever move at this point because there's too many of them and they're too heavy. And I don't even know how I would disassemble my bookcase at this point. Matthew, does that mean you're going to be a New York lifer? I mean, I think almost certainly. I would like to say that I'll do a sabbatical somewhere else. I've been told I need to see the world. Is the longest you've been away Yale? Was that the longest you've been away? Yeah, I mean, for any kind of duration, absolutely. That's pretty crazy. I don't know if I can handle it. I don't think I'm built for it. Why would you leave the greatest city in America, Chris? I mean, New Yorkers are incredibly provincial. I'm incredibly provincial because we can't go anywhere. I mean, some people do, but I've never heard of such a thing, and I certainly am not going to be the first. All the skills you've picked up your whole life are absolutely no good anywhere else. I used to really be nervous that I was truly such a rare orchid that I wouldn't be able to breathe outside of New York. I very specifically remember having a therapy session when I was in high school being like, I don't know, is it okay to look at UCLA or something? What is it like there? I require a certain microclimate in order to live. What do you think about LA? Just in general. I've come around on LA. I had the sort of native New Yorker, knee-jerk LA antipathy, and I'm glad to say I've gotten over it because I think LA is super fun to visit. To me, seven days is the perfect length of time there. After that, I start getting a little itchy. Part of that probably has to do with the fact that I've only been a licensed driver since last May. That was my next question. Welcome to high school. Thank you very much. Did you take lessons or did you just wing it at the driving test? I mean, have we met? I don't think you want to see me wing it in an automobile. No, I took lessons with a wonderful former respiratory nurse named Jay at DriveRide Academy of Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Jesus Christ. So does that mean you keep a car in the city then? Oh, absolutely.

I am proud to say that I got my license first try. Thank you very much. But I am certainly in no way really prepared to keep a car, to own a car, to drive by myself. I mean, it's very embarrassing because I have a younger brother and a sister, both of whom grew up in exactly the same circumstances I did, and both of whom... though I will live to regret saying so on air, are excellent drivers and have been driving since, I think, high school and early college and think it is patently absurd that I barely can. But you can change the oil in a car or something at least, right? I mean, I can take off every tire. I could break every window. But, you know, all the things you need to do for a car. But driving remains the sort of white whale for me. I mean, I can do it. But you don't really want to be in a car with me. And God knows I'm not ready to do it on the LA freeway. Why did you do this at all? Just a personal accomplishment to get your license later in life? Was it just a personal challenge? Or did you need it for some reason? I didn't need it for any immediate reason, but I'm now on the north side of 30, and it just started to seem a little bit ridiculous that if you kidnapped me and dropped me off eight miles outside New York City, I truly would have to just live and die there. There would be no way for me to humanly escape. It sounds like you could at least mine some content out of this as well. Yeah, I agree. I want to read the diary of this learning process. I did. I wrote a piece when I was at the Times, a very strange piece, about how summer was anxiety season for non-drivers because there was all this expectation of driving and weekends away and could you go to Montauk and could you whatever. Probably a cancelable piece at this point to suggest that you have to go to Montauk or not checking my privilege or whatever else, but a very weird piece. And in the course of it, I was meant to get.

the license that was going to kind of be part of the piece, but somehow it didn't come together and it was still like a further, I don't know, two or three years after that. Actually, Chris has a similar article about learning how to ride a motorcycle where he then failed the test. I failed the test and I still went to Wisconsin for the Harley 100th anniversary. Did you subsequently pass or are you still unlicensed? oh i'm unlicensed and i i but i was in wisconsin with harley davidson and like a stunt rider and like i did all this wild shit on the back of this bike with this guy i mean could you imagine this queen riding a motorcycle though first of all i would never i hated it i hated every second of it and it's it's crazy to me that people choose to do it for fun that's the thing that i mean obviously everybody gets their you know their kicks different ways but like It is so stress-inducing for me that I couldn't ever unlock the feeling. You just quite simply couldn't pay me enough. There's really nothing more I can say. Sometimes you're driving. Or being driven and see a motorcyclist in the next lane. Is that even what you call them, a motorcyclist? I mean, I sound like I'm 150 years old. But it fills me with such a sheer terror. I mean, even seeing people in these stupid revels, I think like, what's the goal here? Like just immediate death? The goal is to die. Yeah, I don't get it either. And I was terrified. And the machine was just too powerful for me. It takes a big man to admit, but respect. It's very physical. You have to really grip the chassis with your thighs, and it's very hot. I just don't understand it. I tried, too. I went deep. I went to Wisconsin for the weekend to hang out with these people. That's how deep I went. I really tried. Spoken like a true New Yorker.

I have more questions, but maybe I'll follow up with you offline. No, that's literally what a podcast is for. Please go ahead. Unless they're about my thighs, then we'll take it offline. It's more about the chassis. What was this like a professional obligation? What made you think you wanted to do this? You know, I wanted basically a friend of mine approached me and was like, hey, I'm working with this alcohol company. We're doing this big thing for Harley's anniversary. And I was like, OK, well, I've actually, you know, participatory journalism is my beat. So like. I want to, I want to, I'll try to learn to ride a motorcycle and then I'll go to Wisconsin and ride in the Harley 40th anniversary ride they do through town in Wisconsin. And I just, I, so we, my, my friend Yeo and I, who was the photographer that's coming with us, we both took the class in Glendale one weekend. Cause you said take a class to get licensed and he passed and I failed, but we were still going on the trip. So like, and I still, I mean, to be honest with you, I still had like the experience I wanted to have because I basically wanted to understand, why anyone would do this and also like the lifestyle that people are so entrenched in they love it so much um and i did find honestly and being in wisconsin was the only way to find this out i did find that like it was a much more welcoming and diverse community than i ever thought it would be you know what i mean i thought it was going to be a bunch of fucking you know rednecks with with guns um and it actually was a lot of that but not totally that um and it was and madison wisconsin was actually really beautiful in august i had a nice time Can't say better than that. Madison, Wisconsin, I believe the alma mater of Virgil Abloh. It is the alma mater of Virgil Abloh. He's a cheesehead. He's a cheesehead. But I believe there's also a big Jewish community of New Yorkers that go to college there as well that I have heard about from other places. So it has many, many appeals to me. I can't wait to go, Chris.

Yeah, yeah. You guys will make it. We can all buy a loft for $50,000 and live there forever. Well, Matthew, lastly, is there anything that you're working on right now or any dream, like goal projects that one day you hope to accomplish, write a movie, write a book, you know, whatever that may be? Yeah, I probably should, huh? No, not necessarily. We're not trying to pressure you. Or even something outside of the journalism, literary world. We'll see. I keep waiting for Divine Inspiration Strike or to work on something that I think I really want to dig in and stay on top of this for a year or multiple years at a stretch. I have so many friends who have written books and almost without exception. They say, you know, we thought it was going to be a lot of work, but in fact, it was like a shit ton of work. And I'm not afraid of that, but I think you really have to like hit on exactly the thing that you want to spend that much time with. Well, then do you consider podcasting? I mean, the Chris Black unauthorized biography or authorized biography? No, just you having a podcast of your own. You have a good podcast voice. You have a great podcasting voice. You really do. I'm sure you've heard that before, but it's exceptional. Wow. Honestly, I think I kind of have a gay voice. Yeah, podcasting voice. Yeah, exactly. I find it very soothing, to be honest. I remember when I was still at the Times, Nomi, a friend of the pod, Nomi Fry, and I worked. We're not quite together, but in parallel. And we were absolutely convinced that we should have a podcast. And I remain true to that conviction. I think it is 100% accurate. But we... sort of tried to get anybody to buy into that idea to sign on. I mean, I have a friend who's a big podcast producer. They're podcast people at the Times. And they kept saying, all right, what's your podcast? And we just said, it's this. It's just us talking. I'm not going to be railroaded into telling you what it's about.

It's us talking. And if you don't see the genius, someone else will. And of course, no one else ever has. But I remain hopeful and maybe even confident that at some point someone will. Well, that's the thing about podcasting. It's a low barrier of entry. That's what we're able to succeed ourselves. All you have to do is have a couple of mics and a brain and you can just take this thing on the road. And you might have to bootstrap it yourself a little bit before you start getting, you know, those corporate dollars behind you. But, you know, if you're willing to put in that sweat equity, then podcasting is for you. I mean, I'll tell New York Magazine I'm ready for like a full multi-year sabbatical to really dig into the podcast space. I feel like Vox Media has podcasting studios. I've been to those offices before. You know what I mean? It's in your backyard. Vox Studios are subpar. That's true. I should probably plug The Cut Has a New Podcast that's great. With Avery Truffleman, yeah? That's right. I have not yet been invited on, but hopefully chatting it out on this show is going to do the trick for me. Once the big media players who all listen to this show hear you, you'll be invited on. Avery does not listen to this. What kind of apologies do I need to make in closing for anybody? No apologies. You were a very safe and measured guest. You didn't let it spray. I would wish you would have let it sprayed more, to be honest. But, you know, I knew I'm working with a professional. Well, you know, it's the first time he's been on the show. We'll wear him down a little bit and he'll be spilling tea everywhere on episode two. That's true. And, you know, just so you know, we're hours away from our first Twitch broadcast live. How long gone live? You like Twitch, Matthew? I have to confess, it's on my phone, actually. I have downloaded it. There was a Twitch comedy show I was trying to watch at one point that I honestly couldn't fucking figure out one way or the other.

twitch virgin and and and i don't know if i'm ready for you guys to to change that but it's nice to know the option we hope to not anyone's twitch cherry but it may wow okay well i was gonna i was gonna say maybe you take a look and if you're interested you know you can come to la you can be a guest but i understand i understand you have to ease your way in we'll uh we'll tell the private jet to just turn around and and go back to teeterboro i guess It's a toe dip at a time, you know, like baby steps. That's life. Tell the people where they can find you on the World Wide Web before we let you go. Oh, I'm Matthew Schneier on basically all platforms except Twitch. All right. Matthew, thank you for joining us. It was a pleasure. Thank you very much for coming on, Matthew. The pleasure is all mine, fellas. Thanks for having me. We'll talk to you soon, King. Later. Bye.