0:17

Hey, and welcome to What Future.

0:19

I'm your host, Josh Wittapolski, and

0:21

I would love to tell you that today on the show, we have a great

0:23

guest.

0:24

I would love to say that.

0:25

I would love nothing more than to tell you that we had

0:27

a great guest that's coming on and

0:29

we're going to have such an interesting conversation about

0:32

the media world because it's in tatters,

0:34

it's been shattered, it is, it is scattered

0:37

into the wind. Tucker Carlson gone,

0:39

Don Lemon out, BuzzFeed closed,

0:42

BuzzFeed News rather but unfortunately

0:44

our guests couldn't make it. Who who I was going to talk to you about

0:47

all that. I want to believe somebody

0:49

really tragic came up, though I think it was just a just

0:52

a tight booking situation and we couldn't

0:54

make it work. But I mean, I don't want something

0:56

tragic to have happened to the guests, obviously,

0:58

just like a tragic event that prevented them

1:01

from arriving at the studio

1:03

in time or whatever. That's anyhow, let's

1:05

not dwell on it. So we're gonna have to wing

1:07

it. We're gonna have to do an episode where I don't know

1:09

if I'm gonna be able to do it. Like, you know, the thing

1:11

is, I don't have much to say, and

1:13

I don't have a lot to talk about. I don't have very many

1:15

opinions or positions on

1:18

the day's news or what's happening

1:20

in the world. So I think it'll be difficult,

1:23

but I think it's possible. And and my

1:25

producer, Lyra, who's

1:27

here, I think, has agreed to help to

1:30

jump in if if I'm drowning, has agreed

1:32

to not jumping because that'd be a mistake, then we both

1:34

be drowning in the water. But maybe has

1:37

agreed to get a stick.

1:38

Like a branch throw a life.

1:41

I'm imagining you get like a dead

1:43

like a tree has lost a large branch, and

1:45

I'm drowning, and you're

1:47

like, then you get the branch and you stick it out into the

1:49

water, is my In my view, I guess that's more

1:51

of a quicksand thing though really like seems

1:54

like actually jumping in and saving me from drowning would be

1:56

the right thing to do. So thanks for nothing, so

1:58

Lyra Smith is here, and then Jenna. I don't know if Jenna's

2:00

going to make it appearance. Jenna who's our supervising producer,

2:02

Jenna Cagile. Now, Jenna doesn't like

2:04

to I don't think she wants to be on air. I

2:07

think I don't know she's got something to hide. We don't

2:09

know that. We don't know the extent of it. But I

2:12

don't know if she'll make an appearance or not. But at any rate,

2:14

so we're going to try to get through. You have a lot to talk about.

2:16

Why are you laughing, Lyra? You don't like

2:19

am I putting on this pause.

2:20

I can't see Jenna's face, so I don't know what

2:22

she's thinking when you say.

2:23

That

2:28

she's happy. Actually she liked it. That's interesting.

2:31

She's enjoying. And then I have stuff to hide.

2:33

I have stuff.

2:33

Because you do have stuff to hide. I know you had

2:35

a troubled, very troubled teenage experience.

2:38

I know you were kind of a bad kid.

2:40

Well, Josh, it's funny that you say that, because that is

2:42

what I wanted to ask you about.

2:43

Oh okay, great.

3:04

I said I had a question for

3:06

Josh, non topical. It

3:09

couldn't be less topical, actually,

3:11

But then you made a reference

3:14

to teenage years.

3:16

I don't like. I do not like where this is going

3:18

at all.

3:19

You're the youngest person that

3:21

I know of who dropped out of school,

3:24

and I know a lot of people who dropped out of school.

3:25

What does that mean when you mean I'm my current age is

3:28

the young No?

3:28

No, no, I mean you anybody you dropped

3:30

out freshman year of high.

3:31

School something like that. Yeah, that's

3:34

right. That sounds right to my ninth grade? Is that freshman

3:36

year?

3:36

How? Yeah? I want to know

3:38

this story. I feel like it's

3:41

it's it's an important piece of

3:43

the puzzle of who who

3:45

Josh Chapolski is.

3:46

Are you familiar with the government program

3:48

known as mk Ultra?

3:50

I am,

3:52

Well, that's nothing to do with that, but it's a cool

3:54

it's a cool thing that the government did really interesting

3:57

experiments. So, uh,

3:59

well, my brother and I had very troubled a

4:01

school career. To be honest with you, My school

4:03

problems began in I

4:05

don't know, third grade or something, second

4:08

grade, third grade because my brother decided one day

4:10

that he didn't want to go to school. My brother Eric, and

4:12

I don't know if I'm exposing him, you know his narrative,

4:15

but I'm going to talk about it because anyhow, So

4:17

I was his little brother. You know, I was a little kid at

4:19

the time. Maybe he was in I

4:21

don't know, fifth grade, sixth grade, I'm not really sure. Whatever,

4:23

whatever the distance was there, and he was like, I'm not going

4:26

to school and was like very militant

4:28

about it. And my parents,

4:30

you know, I don't think my

4:33

parents were well equipped for certain

4:35

aspects of parenting, and I

4:37

think that they didn't quite

4:39

know how to counter this. Eric

4:42

and I were very strong willed, strong willed children.

4:44

I think we were like, we don't want to go to school,

4:46

and they were like, uh, okay,

4:49

maybe like for a little bit, but then

4:51

you're gonna have to go back. And then over

4:53

time that just became a bigger and bigger problem. And

4:56

so I was in and out of a bunch of different schools. I mean,

4:58

I had more time in than

5:00

Eric did, I think. To be honest with you, but you

5:03

know, one of the things about when you start to miss a

5:05

lot of school when you're young is, uh, you

5:08

know, the feeling of having missed and

5:10

not being a part of all of it, and

5:13

and feeling like bad

5:15

about like not knowing people and not knowing

5:17

what's going on, and like you've been out and it's gonna

5:19

be weird and you get back like that kind of I think builds up

5:21

over time. And nobody in

5:24

my family came up with a great solution. This is the

5:26

probably the most I've ever talked about, like the

5:28

actual like familial situation that was

5:30

going on. By the way, nobody really

5:32

had a solution. We went to therapists, We had

5:35

all kinds of There was like, you know, intervention from

5:37

you know, people associated

5:39

with like the Department of Education or whatever,

5:41

you know, like people like you can't just not let your kids

5:43

go to school. My mother's a school

5:46

teacher, by the way, which is in another fascinating

5:48

aspect of the story. She's retired

5:51

now obviously, And uh yeah,

5:54

you know, I don't know. I was also like a crazy night owl.

5:56

Like personally, I think Eric slept pretty

5:59

normally, but I didn't, so I would just stay

6:01

up all night, like fucking around on my computer. I

6:03

started like using the Internet when I was twelve,

6:06

And this is in I don't

6:08

know a year, was nineteen eighty nine or something

6:10

like, with the internet barely existed nineteen

6:13

ninety, like there was like a local service provider

6:15

anyhow. The second I started meeting people on the Internet. I

6:17

was like, who needs reality? I

6:19

have like all these friends in Perth, Australia

6:22

who are up in the middle of the night on

6:25

the Internet.

6:26

So you know, that.

6:27

Became like kind of my whole world. That became

6:30

my whole life is like talking to people on hanging

6:32

out with people on the internet. And then school

6:34

was like this afterthought. Yeah,

6:36

by the time I hit ninth grade, it was kind of like a it was

6:38

a non starter.

6:40

It wasn't going well and.

6:41

It's ninth grade. Is that the earliest that

6:43

a person can remove

6:45

from public.

6:46

I don't know, Actually, I don't think the situation

6:49

was like totally. I don't know what the like legal

6:51

situation was, like, I mean, my parents didn't go to

6:53

jail or something. You know, we weren't taken away from them,

6:56

and perhaps that's white privilege. I don't know, Like,

6:58

you know, maybe I experienced like a you

7:00

know, they were like, hey, we're working on it, and everybody

7:02

was like okay, fine. In other situations that might

7:04

not have been the case. And I think

7:06

about it from time to time. It

7:09

is like, you know, a strange thing besides

7:12

not learning certain things at a certain period

7:14

in time, like it's like, school's good. Like I

7:16

have a daughter who's in school, and like, I see

7:19

the result of the school and I'm like, that's great.

7:21

She's really learning important stuff. That's super

7:23

good. But beyond that, I think

7:25

my ability

7:28

to socialize with other people and

7:30

my level

7:32

of I don't know about level of maturity, but

7:34

just my aptitude for

7:37

socializing was adversely

7:40

affected, I would say, by not

7:42

being in school a lot at

7:45

a young age. And so I think I

7:47

became a naturally, very somewhat

7:50

antisocial person. Though I think a lot of people would claim

7:52

I'm not antisocial. I

7:54

seem like I'm not antisocial, but I think

7:56

most of my socializing is a

7:58

defense mechanism anyhow.

8:02

So that's my story. I don't know if that's helpful to you

8:04

at all, but it is.

8:05

And then by nineteen right,

8:09

we're like a working

8:11

producer.

8:12

Correct.

8:13

Oh, around the same time I started fucking with the internet.

8:15

My brother was a guitar player. He was taking

8:18

like guitar lessons. At some point he got a synthesizer

8:20

and a drum machine. I can't

8:22

remember why, but he was not interested in them

8:24

and he sort of discarded them. And I was like, oh, what are

8:26

these what are these electronic devices

8:29

and let me check those out? Because I was just a very

8:31

Like all my life, I was just a very I'm

8:34

trying to think of the best way to describe this. Oh, it was always

8:37

very interested in like how

8:39

things worked, and like electronic things, and like

8:41

like I also a fairly

8:43

weird kid, I guess, like I used to go and radio

8:46

shacks don't exist anymore, but one of my favorite things to do

8:48

when I was like a little kid, like six, my

8:51

parents would take me to radio shack, and radio shacks

8:53

sold all of these like parts, like these

8:55

little motors and like switches

8:57

and buzzers, and you could like basically

9:00

connect them if you could figure it out,

9:02

you could make them do dumb things like you could

9:04

make the motor go and a light go off and a sound go off. They weren't

9:06

kids, they were literally just like the parts. And

9:08

I used to love to like get the parts

9:10

and like put them together and make weird little like gadgets

9:13

or contraptions or whatever, you know. So whatever

9:16

that thing was was just a continuous part

9:18

of my personality. So when

9:21

I got ahold of the synthesizer and drum machine, I started

9:23

making like weird computer music, like you

9:28

know what you see these people they're like it's

9:30

like, there's a great documentary about this guy. It's

9:32

called in the Realms of the Unreal, I

9:34

believe is the name of it. It's narrated

9:36

by Dakota Fanning. It's super weird. Actually, it's

9:38

about this guy whose name is I want to say Henry Darger,

9:41

but he like you know, made paintings for

9:44

fifty years and wrote like a fifteen thousand

9:46

page like novel, like he's out of his mind.

9:48

But like anyhow, I was like that like for

9:50

music, Like I didn't really listen to music, didn't

9:52

really like wasn't that interested in it, Like

9:54

my touchsdoones for like music. When I was younger,

9:57

I was like, I like the pet Shop Boys and the Jesus

10:00

Christ Superstar soundtrack, so like the real

10:03

like wide range of the spectrum

10:05

of musical interest there. Anyhow,

10:07

So I took the keyboard and the drum machine. I

10:09

started fucking around with them. Then eventually because

10:12

of the Internet, So when I was

10:14

on the Internet at like fifteen or sixteen or

10:16

whatever, aim did not exist.

10:19

The Internet that I used was like a command line

10:22

to like things. You could visit on

10:24

the Internet, and there were things you could do

10:26

like once you were online. One of

10:28

them was a thing called telnet, which was like

10:30

a Unix function which dials into like

10:32

a server that somebody hosts. And there was a thing called

10:35

v Rave, which was a virtual rave,

10:37

which was like ravers would go into

10:39

this like chat room. Basically they would tell

10:42

net to a chat room and then

10:44

you would talk to people. It's like just pure text and

10:46

emojis, but not emojis like you know, like emoticons,

10:49

like you know, like shit like that. It was like super

10:51

duper like basic. Anyhow,

10:53

so I met people and I ended up somehow

10:55

in v Rave talking to people, and then I was like,

10:58

oh, there's these things like I'm up all night. There's

11:00

these things where people go out and listen

11:02

to like insane electronic music all night long,

11:04

and and so I started doing that when I was like sixteen

11:06

or seventeen, and

11:08

a bunch of people in Australia were actually ravers

11:10

as well. And then I started

11:13

making music like that

11:15

was you know, like techno music and trans.

11:17

And stuff like that.

11:17

And then and then yeah,

11:19

I think I was nineteen when I released my first record.

11:22

I would go to Raves and I was sober. I was

11:24

like the only sober person and for a long

11:26

time, and people would be like what do you want. I'm like, I'm

11:28

not, this is just my personality and.

11:31

Uh and so like I did a lot of.

11:33

Like observing at raves, you know. I was like a lot of

11:35

like just kind of like what's going on here. The

11:37

first thing I did when I started going to raves was I thought like,

11:39

oh, somebody should do like weird, Like

11:42

there could be like cool weird visuals, and so of

11:44

course my gadget brain was like what if I bought

11:46

like twenty old TVs

11:48

and I like set them up in like a grid and

11:51

then got like live video mixing software

11:53

on my computer and like did weird live psychedelic

11:56

video mixing along to the music? So immediately

11:58

I met some people who were throwing raised and I was like, Hey,

12:00

have you guys ever thought about.

12:02

You know, having a weird visual thing

12:04

here? And they were like, sure, do that.

12:06

And then I did that for a while, which was sort of my entry

12:08

point to like making music and deejaying.

12:22

So were you like working like

12:24

a part time job during this?

12:26

I had some odd jobs. I worked

12:28

at a bank doing data entry

12:30

for a little while, which I

12:33

found to be extremely,

12:35

extremely boring. I

12:37

worked for a very short period of time. I worked at a place

12:39

called Mailboxes et cetera, which is a it's

12:42

like a shipping store, and there was a

12:44

very old woman who ran it, who was like the meanest

12:47

person I've ever met in my entire life, and she

12:49

hated hated my guts and thought

12:51

I was I was terrible at my job, which is probably

12:53

true. I worked one day at a

12:55

Blockbuster. That was maybe my first job was I

12:57

worked one day at a Blockbuster. I thought working at Alockbuster

13:00

would be awesome until I got there and

13:02

realized what working into Blockbuster was like. And

13:04

I was like, actually, this is not good and I don't want

13:07

to be here.

13:07

What was it like, because it still seems awesome

13:09

to me.

13:10

No, I was just like depressing, and there was like a lot

13:12

of dumb work, like like rewinding

13:14

videotapes, like like finding tapes that weren't

13:17

rewound and rewinding them, and like getting

13:19

mismatch tapes and boxes, and

13:22

you know, like checking people out who.

13:24

Were in a bad mood or whatever. It didn't want to be

13:26

nice to you.

13:27

I was just you know, like any retail jobs

13:29

just monotonous bullshit where you get treated like crap

13:31

by the customers. So

13:34

I had some jobs like that. I've worked

13:36

for a brief period of time as eighteen as a graphic

13:38

designer at some graphic design firm in Pittsburgh,

13:41

and that didn't work out because I didn't want to.

13:43

I didn't want to do design for other people, like

13:46

they're like, design this thing, and I was like, this

13:48

is stupid and I hate it. I want to do my

13:50

own thing. Of course, this is like the story of my life.

13:52

Did you find it hard that you to get a job

13:54

because you didn't have like a ged or

13:57

like.

13:57

No, never, I didn't find it hard

13:59

to get a job.

14:00

Actually, weirdly enough, I'm

14:02

not even sure how I got a lot of these jobs that the design

14:04

one.

14:04

I remember.

14:05

I think I a friend of mine worked at this

14:07

place. They did like real stuff like

14:09

for ads, and like they were an actual business,

14:11

like in an office building, and

14:13

and I think I either I went

14:16

in there like one day they

14:18

would like needed some help with something, or I don't even remember

14:20

it. Maybe I like I got out of remember,

14:22

but they saw some of my design. They were like this is really good,

14:24

Like, do you want to work here? And I was like, because I had been doing

14:26

like rave flyers and stuff like on the side,

14:28

anything related to computers I was doing, except

14:31

coding, which would have been the best thing to learn, which I never

14:33

did.

14:33

If I was smart, I.

14:34

Would have learned to code, like like a

14:36

lot of people of that generation. But I was like,

14:38

everything you could do creative with a computer I was

14:40

interested in. But if it had anything to do with like numbers

14:43

or math or like frankly, just

14:45

learning something that didn't come naturally to me, I was

14:47

like, no, thank you.

14:49

So then when did you move to New York?

14:51

You know, if we're doing like my life story.

14:54

So I started making music and djaying,

14:56

but like I thought, everything I.

14:58

Made was terrible.

14:59

And and I met this DJ

15:02

guy named Duran who was a pretty popular DJ

15:04

from the West Coast. Duran Chambers is his name.

15:06

He co ran a record label

15:09

on the West Coast called Rampant Records,

15:12

and he knew this guy at a label

15:14

called Fragrant Records. These were, like, you know,

15:16

fairly well known, like trance or techno

15:19

labels. Any I gave him one of

15:21

my tapes and I was apparently he told me the story

15:23

many many years later, maybe months

15:25

later. I can't remember how long the delay was, but I gave him

15:27

a tape and I was like, I think we were at a party

15:30

in Detroit. By the way, this is the kind of thing like on

15:32

a regular basis, I would be in like Detroit or Baltimore

15:34

or like Cleveland or wherever, like just traveling

15:37

to go to a rave or DJing or just hanging out.

15:39

And I gave him a tape. We were in like Detroit.

15:42

Detroit raves were interesting too, because it was like when

15:44

Detroit was like really like fairly

15:46

like it was pretty could be pretty scary, like

15:49

just like it was pretty run down,

15:51

and I mean still is to some extent. But I

15:53

just remember being there. I think one of the parties we were at, they

15:55

were like, oh, yeah, we have snipers on the roof to make

15:57

sure Nobe tries to steal like get out of here

16:00

with like our money. I was like, that seems like

16:02

a bad scene. It's like a bad

16:05

vibe for the for the rave.

16:07

But anyhow, also, don't really trust the snipers.

16:10

Yeah, I don't know, It's like maybe

16:12

it was just a story that they were telling everybody,

16:15

but at any rate. I think I gave him a tape in Detroit and I was

16:17

like, this is apparently. I was like, this is terrible

16:19

and not really finished, and like it's not good. You shouldn't

16:21

listen to it. But here's some songs I've been working on. And

16:23

he was like, I put it on a

16:25

shelf. I was like, the guy said this was terrible and I'm not

16:27

listening to it. So for many months,

16:29

I guess didn't listen to it, and then turned

16:32

out he liked it. And that's how I started. So

16:34

it was very random, like I wasn't like trying that

16:36

hard anyhow. So then I put out a

16:38

record on Fragrant or

16:41

Rampant. Maybe I did a remix for them. I

16:43

think I was like nineteen years old something like

16:45

that, probably eighteen nineteen, somewhere

16:47

in that range.

16:48

Can I just ask like, if you're nineteen and then all this stuff

16:50

was happening, did you feel lucky? Like, what's the

16:52

feeling?

16:53

I felt nothing?

16:55

I felt what's the feeling? The feeling

16:57

was like no, no, no, no, no,

17:00

I mean people do who when you're doing that? You're not

17:02

like, Wow, I'm so lucky. You're just kind of like

17:04

I want to do this thing and now oh I can do it, and

17:06

you're like, oh, well, no, what else I could do like that? At least

17:08

that's for me. I was like, Oh, I'm doing

17:10

a thing now, like that's cool, Like let me do more

17:12

of that or let me try some other thing or whatever,

17:15

you know. For me, it was just like a rolling, like

17:18

creative rolling, like what

17:20

what am I interested in doing? What's like satisfying

17:23

to me creatively? And then actually the thing about

17:25

the demo tape was I knew people

17:27

who were like really aggressively like mailing

17:29

tapes out and like promoting themselves,

17:31

and like I do not have like the promotion gene

17:33

like I think you guys even experience this now where I'm

17:36

like even a little cagey about like putting

17:38

a clip from the show on like Instagram

17:40

or I'm not like I'm like, ah, is that great? Like do I want

17:42

to put It's kind of like I don't really love like self

17:44

promotion, so I was like actually

17:46

not working very hard at promoting

17:48

myself, which is why like it

17:51

seemed like a weird fluke that anybody even

17:53

ever listened to the tape.

17:54

So before I moved to New York.

17:56

I moved to Philadelphia, but this was like many years

17:58

after, And in fact, somebody just said me an

18:00

interview that I did in the year two thousand

18:03

in a magazine. They

18:05

sent me a picture of the of the

18:07

interview because they had clipped it. And first

18:09

off, I come off like a complete asshole in

18:11

the interview, like I sound like the biggest asshole

18:14

in the world, like just a total jerk,

18:16

and like with a bad sense of humor. I

18:18

mean, maybe the writer wanted it to be that

18:20

way, but I'm like, oh yeah, this, God, I sound

18:23

so annoying. Also, I shit

18:25

on Pittsburgh in the interview. I say that people can't read

18:27

there because I had just moved to Philadelphia, and I make

18:29

some I think I was trying to be funny, like in

18:32

a way that does not translate in print.

18:34

And I think, of course, now I have to say what it

18:37

was like twenty yeah, something like that. They were like,

18:39

how's Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, And I was like,

18:42

well, at least people can read here, And I think, like

18:44

the joke was. It wasn't like

18:46

I didn't think people in Pittsburgh couldn't read. It was just

18:48

like a funny thing to say, because like

18:50

they're pretty much the same. They're pretty similar, you

18:52

know, in a lot of ways. I remember people

18:54

being mad about that in Pittsburgh, but I didn't care

18:56

because I was on my way to the big time, to

18:59

the big city. I moved to Philadelphia for a couple

19:01

of years because a bunch of my friends had moved there,

19:03

and I found Philadelphia

19:05

to be Uh.

19:08

Maybe I've talked about this with you before.

19:09

I don't know if I have Lyra or Jenna, but

19:12

you know, I'm not a spiritual person. I'm not a

19:14

big religious person or believer

19:17

in things like luck or Jinx's or you

19:20

know what, you know, cosmic phenomena that

19:22

can't be explained.

19:23

But I do think it's.

19:23

Possible that Philadelphia is a locus of

19:25

evil on the planet. It's kind

19:28

of like the Bermuda Triangle, like just a spot on

19:30

the planet where dark, very dark situations

19:32

occur. I had a very bad time in Philadelphia.

19:35

I understand now, like it's like kind

19:37

of everybody's like loves Philadelphia and apparently it's

19:39

great. I have no ill will towards the city,

19:41

but there was a period where I was like I got

19:43

to get the fuck out of Philadelphia. Anyhow, my brother

19:45

moved to New York because he had moved to Philadelphia too

19:48

after I had, and then he

19:50

moved to New York. And then I came to visit him

19:52

and we went to a restaurant which is still

19:54

in business called Diner.

19:56

You know, diner, Lyra, Where is it in New York.

19:58

It's in Williamsburg.

19:59

It's on oh, the one, right

20:01

off the first stop on the L.

20:04

Yeah, yeah, diner.

20:05

Yeah. I had my first date across the street

20:07

from it with Nick Turner.

20:09

There you go.

20:10

So I came to visit

20:12

Eric and he's like, you

20:14

gotta go to diner. They have a great burger and I'm like, okay,

20:16

because it's very this is Williamsburg in the

20:19

two thousand.

20:20

I don't what's two thousand and two.

20:21

It's like very recently post nine to eleven,

20:24

and so New York's weird, very

20:26

interesting vibe in New York, very weird.

20:28

Interesting.

20:29

Like for me, it was like, oh, like

20:31

I want to be here. This is this

20:33

is where it all happens. This is the terrorists

20:35

are going to strike. They're going to strike here, So this is

20:38

where to be.

20:38

Did you meet Laura in New York.

20:41

No, but hold on a second. I went to diner.

20:43

And the thing with diner is that every

20:45

waitress who worked there, at least from what

20:47

I could tell, was like unbelievably

20:50

flirty. And of course I had some horrible relationship

20:52

in Philadelphia and had been like broken up with and

20:54

felt really bad.

20:55

And I was like flirted with heavily by

20:57

the waitress. And I think just not for.

20:58

Any other reason other than it, would you

21:00

know, guarantee a good tip from the

21:03

you know, four dumb dudes who were at the table or whatever.

21:05

And I was like, oh my god, I gotta move to New York.

21:07

It's all happening here, Like beautiful,

21:10

cosmopolitan ladies are flirting with me at the

21:12

restaurant.

21:12

You know, the burger is great. Like literally

21:15

it was like that.

21:15

It was like something as simple as like WHOA,

21:18

this feels better. You asked me a question.

21:20

What was the question?

21:21

Did you meet Laura in New York? No?

21:23

I met Laura.

21:24

I mean, there's a fast forward here to this story.

21:27

But my brother and I ended up having a

21:29

studio music studio in New York, and we

21:31

had a band, but we also were producing different

21:33

bands like Chick Chick Chick we made a record

21:36

with and some other bands.

21:37

And I saw them, Oh really, yeah,

21:39

they're great.

21:40

We made a record called Mythtakes with them, which I

21:42

believe todate is their highest reviewed record

21:44

on Pitchfork. So that's all my doing, undoubtedly.

21:48

But anyhow, but so we were doing

21:50

that for a while and then a friend of ours

21:52

brought He was like, my friend has a band

21:54

and they want to make a record. Can I bring them to the

21:56

studio? And they came up from Pittsburgh and

21:59

it was is this guy, John de Zubin's

22:01

band and John is Laura's brother, And

22:05

we produced their record and then we

22:07

went back to Pittsburgh. This

22:09

is the summer of two thousand, I want to say four

22:11

or five, for they had a record release

22:14

party for their record that we produced, and that

22:17

is like technically where Laura and I met, though

22:19

she claims there was an earlier encounter

22:21

at our friend's house where we were

22:23

on his porch and she was having a cigarette

22:25

and I told her that smoking was really bad for

22:27

you and she should quick because she's going to get cancer, which

22:30

like absolutely sounds like my move,

22:33

so like Byboove

22:35

would have been to just say whatever was on my mind, usually

22:38

something negative to whoever, especially

22:41

if it was a cute girl. Edihow, so,

22:44

you know, nagging, very good flirt technique.

22:46

I think we all know very.

22:47

Much you were the original.

22:49

But uh yeah, that's that's

22:51

a long time ago to now.

22:53

So then did she move to New York?

22:55

Yes, well we started dating.

22:57

We started a long distance love affair,

22:59

and then I was like, why don't you come visit me? And

23:01

oh, I should mention like her boyfriend at the

23:03

time was the drummer in John's band, so who

23:05

was also named Josh and was also like a tall guy with a

23:07

beard. So I'm not going to read too much into it. But you

23:10

know, let's just say I've spent some

23:12

time in therapy discuss it. No, I haven't, but

23:15

tough guys don't go to therapy. Tough guys

23:17

like myself. Laura and I actually

23:19

began a relationship on MySpace. To be honest

23:21

with you, like if I can date the whole thing

23:24

for a second. We sent a lot of messages

23:26

to each other on MySpace and then I was like, you

23:28

should come visit, you know, come to New York for a weekend

23:30

or something. And then she came to New York and

23:32

we had a great time, and she went

23:34

back and I was like, look, there's no way I'm going

23:36

to be successful in a long distance relationship.

23:38

You should just move here and live

23:41

with me. And that's

23:43

what we did. That's what we

23:45

did.

23:46

Wow.

23:46

And one year later we were engaged and one

23:48

year later we were married.

23:50

Wow.

23:51

We got married at the Carnegie

23:53

Museum of History or whatever in Pittsburgh.

23:56

Well, actually, I didn't want to.

23:57

Ever have a wedding, and then Laura told me that you could rent

23:59

the museum and that there was a possibility

24:01

of doing getting married in like the dinosaur.

24:04

Whatever, but it was under construction.

24:06

We got married in the whole of North American Wildlife, and

24:08

we had our reception in the

24:10

Hall of Architecture, which was like all of these recreations

24:12

of giant famous pieces of like you know,

24:14

like Roman columns

24:17

and things like that. Anyhow, it's

24:19

fun. That was a fun time. It was a fun

24:21

time. It was also a time when like we were like, how

24:23

are we going to pay for this? Because we paid

24:25

for it ourselves and it was like, I

24:28

don't know, it was like several thousand dollars, but

24:30

like it was not like it, Like now it seems

24:33

like wow, like that should not as

24:35

stressed as hot as much.

24:35

As it did.

24:36

But it was like a lot of money at the time. Like

24:38

now that I'm like grown up, I'm like, oh, it's not that bad.

24:40

But like at the time, I was like, what are we doing?

24:43

Well? You didn't have the comparison

24:46

to like the thirty thousand, forty thousand dollars weddings

24:48

as like the norm.

24:50

No, I didn't have any comparison because I'd never

24:52

spent a second thinking about weddings at all,

24:54

except that I didn't want one.

24:55

I didn't want to have one.

24:56

It's kind of like how I thought about poodles, Like I thought

24:58

poodles came with that hair dial like I thought

25:01

when I was a kid, did I already

25:03

talk about this? We had We

25:05

got a poodle when I was a kid. His name was Fletch. My

25:07

mother had had poodles when she was growing up. We wanted a

25:09

dog really badly, so we went shopping for

25:12

dogs, and but like before we went, I was like, I

25:14

don't want a poodle because I thought poodles

25:16

came with those I thought they were like genetically

25:20

had those ball like haircuts, you know,

25:22

like I didn't realize that that was It's

25:24

so funny the way kids minds worked.

25:26

But I didn't realize that that was like a choice.

25:28

And then we started like looking at dogs, and I like,

25:30

you know, we eventually found like some dogs

25:32

and we were like, we really love them, and we were playing with them, and

25:35

I was like, is this a poodle, because

25:37

like I kind of had like a feelid.

25:39

Then of course I.

25:40

Realized that the poodles don't have tom don't

25:42

have to have that haircut. But also we realized

25:44

that poodles are very ill tempered dogs. And

25:47

and Fletch was very, very cruel,

25:49

but every member of the family. No, he was fine, very

25:51

smart. He figured how to open his crate from

25:53

the inside. He could open his cage and get

25:55

out. He set off our motion alarm all

25:57

the time. It's fun stuff.

25:59

We've digressed.

26:10

So then when did you get into journalism.

26:13

It's funny you.

26:14

Should ask that my brother and I were running

26:16

the studio. We were producing bands,

26:18

and then uh, this website

26:20

and gadget had a call for which I

26:22

read all the time. You know, I was like a nerd, so I was reading

26:24

all like the tech blogs and stuff like that, and

26:28

they had an open call for writers, like every once in a while

26:30

they'd be like, you know, hey, we're looking for

26:32

writers. Are you do you want to freelance for us?

26:34

Like do you want to write blog posts? And I was like that would

26:36

be fun, maybe I could do that, And

26:41

you know, I sent like a submission like I'm like, hey.

26:43

I'd like to write for you.

26:44

Here's like whatever they asked for example,

26:46

posts or something, and then like pretty quickly like

26:48

ended up like doing that and then so

26:50

at night.

26:51

Like it in writing

26:53

things as you were going or.

26:55

You know, I'd written a couple I'd written a couple of reviews,

26:58

like for like magazines, like very

27:01

basic stuff, you know, mixed mag or somebody

27:03

would be like, hey, do you want to do like a guest review

27:05

of like a.

27:05

Record or something.

27:06

I'm like sure, And it would be like, you know, a very small but

27:08

like not like on a regular basis, like I did like two of them

27:10

or three of them or something.

27:11

No, I hadn't been writing at all.

27:12

I had, so then I had to write stuff in order

27:15

to do this, like to

27:17

send in samples, you had to like write news. Yeah.

27:19

I think it was like do a writing sample or

27:21

like do you know it was like pick a story and

27:23

write a blog post about it or something.

27:26

I remember at the time, I was like really into

27:29

palm devices. Do you remember palm pilots.

27:31

Well, they had phones, right, they'd like and there was

27:33

like a leak of like.

27:34

There was some new Palm phone and I remember

27:36

like I found it on some weird forum and I

27:38

like brought it to the people at you know, I brought to

27:40

like the editor, and I think they were like

27:42

impressed that I had gone like and gone with

27:45

splunking for like this you know, leaked photo

27:47

or something and anyhow, So, yeah, so I started

27:49

working there like part time, just like you know, writing

27:51

blog posts.

27:52

You know. I was edited and worked with like the people

27:54

who would.

27:55

Work there for a while and and then like

27:57

so so by day I was producing music and by night

27:59

I was you know writing, Like there

28:01

was a pretty good period of time.

28:02

This is in like the.

28:03

Heyday of like original blogging, where I would

28:05

write like ten blog

28:07

posts a day and I was paid eleven

28:09

dollars a post. Like, so I was like, this

28:12

is pretty good money if I can write like ten

28:14

of these, you know, and they're like, yeah,

28:17

you know.

28:17

Three to five hundred word like very

28:20

bloggy.

28:22

Just it was just fucking very random,

28:24

like about tech stuff by gadgets and whatever. Anyhow,

28:26

So I did that for a while and then and then they were like, this is

28:28

you're doing great. Do you want to work here full time?

28:31

And I thought, like I did?

28:33

I mean I did because I liked it a lot, and also

28:35

like the music business sucks, like it sucks

28:37

like being a producer unless you

28:39

are this is of course a different era, but like

28:42

I wasn't doing okay,

28:44

but it's just a tough racket.

28:46

You got to chase people down for money, and

28:48

unless you're having like huge success, you

28:50

know, it's very

28:52

tough, very tough to make a living at it.

28:54

So I was like, yeah, I'll do that full

28:56

time. And then a year later I was the

28:59

editor in chief. Wow,

29:02

a lot of my stories are like

29:04

a lot of my stories shill learn.

29:05

Why do you think this is? Like I'm

29:07

hearing this and I'm thinking, do you not

29:10

watch TV?

29:11

What do you mean? Like I mean not really,

29:13

no, I don't. I mean not a lot, but.

29:15

Like it feels like you've spent

29:17

a lot of time filling your days with

29:19

like actual productive activity

29:22

without thinking of it as being

29:25

productive.

29:26

No, right, just no, all my activities were purely

29:29

pleasurable for me. You know, I've basically

29:31

tried to gravitate towards things that I found enjoyable

29:34

to do and interesting, like creatively

29:36

and intellectually.

29:38

So no, I mean I didn't think.

29:40

I don't I'm not a.

29:42

Big planner or like a big like let me

29:44

step back and admire the view of what is

29:46

going on. It's more like, you know, I'm just doing just

29:48

moving forward towards the thing, whatever that

29:50

thing is.

29:51

And but you've been.

29:52

Able to be successful in all the things,

29:54

which is like impressive, like the stuff

29:57

that you're interested in, you find like very

30:00

quick success.

30:01

Yeah, well I think I just I'm very tall,

30:04

So I think people are just intimidated. I just show

30:06

up and they're like, just don't mess this guy's big,

30:08

who knows what he's gonna do.

30:09

No, I don't know.

30:10

It is interesting like like when I joined when I joined

30:13

NGADGA full time, I got

30:15

very immersed in doing it, and I became very quickly

30:17

like very good at I think what I was doing.

30:19

And then you know, began like leveled

30:22

up a bit, like became an editor of other people

30:24

like pretty quickly. And then what happened was

30:26

like about a year or a year and a half something like something

30:28

like a year a year and a half after I joined full time,

30:31

the editor who was there was leaving to go do

30:33

something new, and there was this like kind

30:36

of weird like nobody seemed to know

30:38

what was going to happen because he had been there

30:40

for like a really long time, guy named

30:42

Ryan Block, and you know, because it was

30:44

owned by AOL and AOL sucked

30:47

and they always manage things badly and

30:49

to like extinction, and there

30:51

was a feeling of like who's going to take over

30:54

now or who's going to run this that can like carry

30:56

the baton or whatever. And

30:59

I was like, hey, like I

31:01

think I'd be good at this. And I

31:03

talked to like other people there and I was like, hey, would

31:05

you guys be if I was like put myself forward

31:07

to like do this, would you be into it?

31:09

And people are like yes? And then it was so it was kind

31:11

of like we sort of came

31:14

up with a plan like as a as a group,

31:16

and I mean it was my somewhat

31:18

my plan, I guess, but you know, it

31:20

just felt like there was a vacuum there and we should be

31:23

mindful of like filling it the right way or

31:25

whatever.

31:25

And that was that, Like

31:28

it is odd. I don't know.

31:29

I think it's probably a lot of this has

31:31

to do with I just like probably

31:34

to in some ways negative

31:37

way. But I'm very blunt. I've been very blunt

31:39

and very straightforward with people about like what

31:41

I want or like what I would

31:43

like to do, and if not

31:45

straightforward with them like verbally, just like

31:47

straightforward about like what it is I

31:49

am doing and enjoy doing. I

31:52

don't have a lot of friends, but like I became

31:54

very close with the people that I work with, Like I've always

31:56

been very close to the people that I work with, and

31:58

and I like value those relationships

32:01

and like this is a weird especially as a boss

32:03

to be like, because I am a boss of people and have been

32:05

for a while, but like to be like, well, I think

32:07

of those people as my friends because at the end of the day, like I'm

32:10

like a manager and they are people who work

32:12

at a company. But I also feel like just

32:15

surrounding yourself with good people and getting to work with

32:17

them is is really important. So

32:19

I haven't I didn't invest a lot of time in like I

32:22

don't know what other other people do.

32:24

I don't know, socializing or.

32:25

Going out and enjoying life, watching

32:27

movies, Like I've done some of that obviously,

32:29

but I've spent a lot of time like doing

32:32

the work the thing that I'm working at, because the thing that I'm

32:34

working at is usually like the

32:37

fun thing and the good thing, and I

32:39

get to hang out with cool people and do it with people

32:41

that are interesting and you know, fun

32:43

to talk to and work with and create

32:45

with.

32:45

So and then what year is that that you're

32:47

editor in chief of in Gadget.

32:49

Two thousand and eight nine? Maybe?

32:51

So, then when does box happen?

32:54

Well?

32:55

Okay, So there was a guy named Marty Mo who

32:57

worked at AOL who was like in charge

33:00

of the media brands

33:02

there. And Marty is

33:04

this guy he had like a really big vision for

33:07

a really bold media brand,

33:09

like if we like expand these

33:11

franchises that we have, like end Gadget was one

33:13

of our brands, and there were some other things, you know, when

33:16

AOL News was sort of like a still a thing and kind

33:18

of taking more of a shape. This is before hoftingon

33:20

post or any of that. Because I remember AOL bought

33:22

Hofftington Post, so

33:24

Marty and I became buddies like after I you

33:27

know, started running end Gadget,

33:29

and we sort of like were like, Hey, wouldn't it be

33:31

cool if we could expand this, Like wouldn't be cool if we could

33:33

like make this bigger and more bold

33:35

and try some new things and like do more video

33:38

and do this, you know, like basically the verge.

33:40

Like we were like, it'd be cool if that, but that

33:42

didn't exist right, Like we didn't have budget, we couldn't

33:44

hire people, we didn't have like any ability to like

33:46

make really interesting choices

33:49

about like the product and things like that. So

33:51

we took it to the to the people who

33:53

ran AOL, where like would you be open

33:55

to investing money? Like this thing's all was

33:57

really successful, and we were like, would you

33:59

be a into investing like a little bit more money

34:01

in it so we could.

34:02

Make it like a huge like a huge business.

34:05

And they were like no, like we're not

34:07

going to invest in fact, we're probly going to do some layoff

34:09

soon or whatever, you know, And so we

34:11

were like fuck this, like fuck that, like we should

34:14

go just do it. Like we were talking on the phone one

34:16

night. I think I said something like, God, I wish we could just

34:18

like take n gadget like out of the company

34:20

and just run it on its own. And

34:22

then we were like, oh, wait, like maybe

34:24

we can like or maybe we can just like see

34:27

if other people would want to do that, and maybe there's somewhere

34:29

to like build something new, or maybe we could build something

34:31

from scratch or whatever, and that like kind

34:33

of snowballed into we met Marty

34:35

knew this guy named Jim Bankoff. Jim Bankoff was running

34:38

a website called ESB Nation, which was a

34:40

network of fan run

34:42

sports blogs and it had grown

34:45

to like a pretty big size, but it was like

34:47

all sports focus. And we met

34:49

with him and they had a really cool CMS, which

34:51

is the content management system. They had a really cool

34:53

like technology that they were building

34:55

to like publish like on the

34:57

Internet. And I thought that was really interesting,

35:00

and we had a lot of very similar ideas about

35:02

like the future of media on the Internet,

35:04

and you know, if we could bring the right

35:06

people over and build something, like could we build

35:09

something together? And that's that's how Vox started,

35:11

really, and they had this like sports

35:13

focused thing and we brought in not

35:15

everybody but a lot of people from Engadget,

35:17

but then from other places as well, and we started

35:19

building you know, the verge, which would become like

35:22

the first that was like the first, like vox

35:24

brand. So that's how that started. I mean

35:26

it's obviously there's a lot of complicated pieces

35:29

of that.

35:29

But yeah,

35:32

this is not topical.

35:33

But this is I said

35:36

it wasn't topical.

35:37

This is interesting interesting. I don't usually talk

35:39

just about myself. Of course, I love doing it.

35:41

It's great, very enjoyable to me to just

35:43

talk about how cool I am and all the great stuff I've

35:45

done.

35:46

Well, I've been wanting to piece these bits

35:48

together.

35:49

Does it make Is it making any sense?

35:51

Yeah, it's making a lot of sense.

35:53

I've had people come up to me and be like, you know when

35:55

we've done events and stuff and say like how do I how

35:57

would I do what you've done? Or like what like

35:59

do you have any advice? And I'm kind of like, actually, like

36:01

I would only have the shittiest advice that I would

36:03

never give anybody, Like definitely wouldn't

36:05

tell anybody to do what I did, Like, yeah, drop out, don't go

36:07

to any school. Just drop out of

36:09

school as soon as you can and

36:12

fuck around with whatever you enjoy and he'll

36:14

probably get successful doing it or whatever, you know. But

36:16

like it is like a very strange thing.

36:19

By the way, I think I should clarify here because

36:21

I said it before. My mother is a school teacher. My father

36:24

sold snack foods. That was his main

36:27

job. He literally had a van that he would

36:29

drive around. He like distributed snack foods

36:31

to like local delis and like corner

36:33

stores. Like I would not say it was a large

36:36

business. Think he made less money

36:38

than my mother, who was a school teacher. So like very

36:41

aggressively middle class parents,

36:43

like aggressively middle class existence.

36:46

You know.

36:46

It's like Tucker Carlton, for instance, heir

36:48

to the I believe, like the Swanson Chicken

36:50

fortune or something right, Like Tucker Carlson

36:52

could do whatever he wanted and never worry.

36:54

About the consequence.

36:55

It's like like Spike Jones, very talented guy,

36:57

but also like I'm pretty sureless like the heir to

36:59

like the Spiegel fortune, and like remember

37:02

the Spiegel catalog. I don't know if you do, but

37:04

anyhow, I'm pretty sure that's his family. By the way, I'm

37:06

not saying I'm Tucker Carlson or Spike Jones level.

37:08

They are just the first two that popped into my mind. Nobody

37:11

in my family was a journalist. Nobody in

37:13

my family made music except for my brother,

37:16

but he made like indie rock and he still makes

37:18

music. But it wasn't like there was some thing like

37:20

this is the family business or like

37:23

you're rich, so don't worry.

37:24

And it doesn't even have to be that. It's just

37:26

having this the money right,

37:29

right, you don't have to want to do

37:31

the exact same thing that your parents did

37:33

to get a leg up if you have.

37:35

Right, No, no, no, I mean yeah, we didn't have. In fact, like

37:37

my parents talk to me all the time. They tell us all

37:39

the time about how we were we like put them

37:41

in debt and you know, like they had to support

37:43

us for longer because we didn't have like you know, we

37:46

didn't go to college and we didn't have I was like, well, we didn't

37:48

go to college, Like so that saved you some money, right, like

37:50

for sure, like you know, but like they

37:52

are like, oh, we have so much debt because of you too,

37:54

which is like actually very rude because like I

37:56

didn't tell them to be parents, Like that's not my fault,

37:58

Like I wasn't in sharp. They're like all the time, they're

38:01

like, oh you were, say

38:03

you were impossible, and I'm like, I was nine,

38:05

Like I wasn't in charge. I don't know why you let

38:07

me make decisions. Like Laura and I have

38:09

talked about this. She was the first person who was like, you know, it's

38:11

pretty weird actually how your parents like blame

38:14

you for like not going to school

38:16

when like, for sure, like that was their job

38:19

to deal with, like they needed to deal with

38:21

that, you know, And I see it now like Zeldason

38:23

days is like I don't want to go, and

38:25

I'm like I.

38:26

Get it, I get it, but you're fucking going.

38:28

You're going to school, Like it sucks sometimes

38:31

to get up and go, but you just got to do it.

38:33

Like I definitely see very clearly,

38:35

like the things that you're supposed

38:37

to do that are hard as a parent

38:39

or whatever.

38:40

Not to say I'm a good parent or perfect parent rather,

38:42

but anyhow, fucking

38:45

so. Yeah, So I didn't come from money and I have a silver

38:47

spoon in my mouth. I'm not saying I was like we were broke

38:50

or anything. We weren't.

38:50

People are way worse off than my parents were. You

38:53

know, and I can't look

38:55

at it and not go I'm like a tall white guy, a

38:57

natural fit in a lot of environments for like who's

38:59

the boss supposed to be? Right, like just in

39:01

the modern era where we are all hopefully

39:04

I was trying to think more about shit like that. It

39:06

of course is like a factor, but it never occurred

39:08

to me at the time. I wasn't like, wow, I should because

39:11

because the thing is like I usually end up in rooms with

39:13

people who are way better on paper than I

39:15

am, like most of the rooms I end up in to

39:18

this day. And this is interesting

39:21

but also like very weird for me, as

39:23

like people who are really well educated

39:25

and do come from money and have

39:27

had like all of the advantages and

39:29

and I don't begrudge that or

39:31

anything. It's just it's very weird to me because

39:33

I don't feel like those. I'm not part of that club.

39:35

Like I'm not.

39:36

I didn't go to a good school, I don't have a great network,

39:39

you know, my family doesn't have money. And there

39:41

was definitely no guarantee

39:43

or not even close to it.

39:44

There was.

39:45

Actually all of the guarantees based

39:47

on my schooling and stuff were sort of like you're

39:49

going to fail in like a hundred different

39:52

ways in life and be like really fucked

39:54

up because of it. And so I

39:57

think about that, you know, quite

39:59

a bit, especially when I'm like talking

40:01

to people about things that I feel like I.

40:02

Shouldn't know about, you

40:04

know.

40:05

I mean, I'm not like gonna say I have imposter syndrome

40:07

or whatever, like, because I know I'm

40:09

an impostor.

40:10

I don't. It's not a syndrome. It's real.

40:13

But you know, but rooms like now, sometimes I'm

40:15

like looking at spreadsheets of insane like

40:17

I'm looking like a P and L and I'm like, why

40:19

do I even know what a P and L is? Like I'm a fucking

40:21

high school dropout.

40:33

Anyhow.

40:33

Just goes to show, you know, if you follow your passions

40:36

and you work hard enough, amazing

40:40

things can occur.

40:40

I disagree with that just because you and I

40:43

have like such It's so interesting

40:45

to hear you say this because you and I have very similar My

40:47

mom.

40:48

Was a teacher, my dad was a chid Gee. Guy,

40:50

I'm sharing about myself.

40:51

Okay, yeah, right, that's right.

40:53

I love the mystery of Jenna and

40:55

here we go.

40:56

We were like very middle class and

40:58

I also went into juggle.

41:00

But I was not tall and I'm

41:02

not a man.

41:03

Yeah, and I am nowhere. You're as successful

41:05

as.

41:06

You are, Jenna. That is

41:08

the only quality that I have. That was

41:10

it just my tallness and being a man.

41:12

And no, I mean, look, that's what I'm

41:14

saying, is it's a I don't want to say its a fluke.

41:16

I don't think it's a fluke. I don't think it's luck.

41:18

Although if I believed in luck, I might

41:20

say, Wow, I've been really lucky.

41:22

I don't think it's luck either. But it

41:25

almost sounds to me And I'm only just hearing

41:27

all this stuff for the first time. You're just telling me

41:29

this for the first time.

41:30

What's your review? We've never talked about this at all before.

41:32

And I'm like absolutely looking at it

41:34

through the lens of me

41:38

and having like, I mean,

41:40

my major disability in life, or

41:42

my major adversity in life is

41:44

insane neuroticism and anxiety.

41:48

And it almost sounds like the

41:51

lack of concern for

41:55

what could go wrong, Yes, five

41:57

years down the line, ten years, what am I going

41:59

to be doing in twenty years? The lack

42:02

of like fear of

42:04

that and like concern it

42:07

sounds like helped you focus

42:09

on what you really wanted

42:11

to get good at and that and you got good

42:14

at it.

42:14

You know, no, but you're right.

42:16

But here's the interesting thing, the flip side of

42:18

that, and this is like to my detriment,

42:21

the thing with me is I have two qualities

42:23

that that I believe, like to your point

42:26

that the thing you're talking about can be amazing

42:29

and helpful, but are also like wildly

42:31

destructive. One is like any

42:33

problem at all, think

42:36

of anything, doesn't matter if it's small, like this

42:38

door knob is broken, or let's

42:41

start a media business and raise ten

42:43

million dollars, like I'll go, why,

42:46

well, like why couldn't I? Like why couldn't I?

42:49

I have a tendency to go. I would

42:51

describe it as like I would say optimism,

42:53

but it's probably not that it's something

42:55

else where. I'll just my thinking is in any

42:58

situation like, well, why couldn't it work? I think a

43:00

lot of people, or it is a very

43:02

natural thing to go like here are all the ways it

43:04

And by the way, I actually can be very negative about stuff.

43:07

I can actually be very critical of things. But

43:09

like when it comes to like a thing I want to do, or think

43:11

I can do. My immediate

43:13

thought is like, well why can I or why shouldn't

43:16

I be able to, which is like obviously built

43:18

up over years of like not just because I've done it,

43:20

but it is just my mode. It is like

43:22

if it's broken, why can't it be fixed? Like

43:24

if it isn't done, why couldn't I do it? If it's

43:26

like, why couldn't it be me? And this

43:28

is I'm not saying it's to sound like a jerk

43:31

or egotistical or whatever. And I'm not saying it's

43:33

even a great quality because it means that sometimes I

43:35

do things that are like really

43:37

don't end up that great and little

43:40

things in big things, you know, like

43:42

the other day I installed a microwave, but

43:45

I had never done that before, and

43:47

like, you know, there was a period during it

43:49

and I'm still like every day I'm like, well, it's still hanging

43:52

there, like it's still on the wall, like, but

43:54

there was a period in the middle of it where I was like I'm

43:56

in over my head, like I don't actually

43:58

know how to finish this thing, And then

44:00

even bigger things like where I'm like fuck this, I'm quitting

44:03

this job and I'll go start my own thing, and like, who

44:05

cares?

44:05

Who cares how well I'm being paid? Who cares that?

44:07

Like I would be on Easy Street for the rest of my

44:09

life if I just stayed here and said, Okay, whatever

44:12

you guys want to do what, I'm fine with. But instead

44:14

I'm like, fuck this, I'm gonna build my own thing, or I'm

44:16

gonna make my own way, or I'm gonna do it the

44:18

way I want to do it, and that can be you know,

44:20

that can have like real world consequences.

44:23

And then I'm like, you know, I'm just very impulsive,

44:25

Like I'm just very prone to just

44:29

do a thing, not just even the

44:31

processing of like why not.

44:33

I think these things are positives. They

44:35

could go bad, and

44:39

I'm sure they have at different points, but overall,

44:42

it sounds like it sounds like a

44:44

good way to think about things that you want to do.

44:46

I did an interview with Kasey Nystad, who we should

44:48

have on the show. I had him on my own podcast,

44:50

and he's also a high school dropout. We're I think

44:52

we're about the same age or very close in age. He's

44:55

one of the few people I've met who's had a very

44:58

similar life experience to my and

45:00

where I mean. I think he's way

45:02

way more successful than I am. But I haven't

45:04

met that many people who are like nothing

45:06

should have worked out, really, but like somehow

45:09

I just like forced it to work.

45:10

I don't know. That's why, Like I have no good.

45:12

Advice to give anybody, because none

45:15

haven't made any sense, and yet here we.

45:16

Are it made perfect sense. And I do

45:18

think there is good advice. You

45:20

don't have to like form the words.

45:23

Yeah, okay, that's interesting. I'll be able

45:26

to listen back to.

45:26

This and be like, wait, by example, Yeah, I'm.

45:28

Leading by example. What is the example? I don't

45:30

know. Just fucking do it. Just go for it.

45:33

Just do it is my thing.

45:35

Okay, my motto which I invented, you

45:37

came up with that, I came up with, just do it. If

45:39

you've heard it anywhere else, that's mine and

45:41

they owe me money. We didn't even talk about

45:44

my man Tucker Carlson, you know, and

45:46

my boy.

45:47

Don, Like I was going to tell you. In a

45:49

meeting yesterday, I asked if anybody

45:52

had any leads on people who would be good

45:54

to talk about Tucker Carlson, And I

45:57

said Tucker Max

45:59

Carlson. Because my

46:01

something some wires wrong.

46:04

That's a brain.

46:05

And I had been talking about Tucker Max earlier

46:07

that day.

46:08

The best thing I saw about the whole thing. Now, I mean,

46:11

we're not we can't get into it. But Tucker Carlson

46:13

and Don Lemon were both fired on the same day,

46:16

and somebody tweeted like they're doing a podcast

46:18

and it like, honestly would

46:20

be an amazing, amazing podcast

46:22

that I would love to listen to.

46:23

I mean, maybe not love to listen to.

46:26

I mean, fuck Tucker Carlson to hell, is

46:28

my stat my stance on Tucker

46:30

Carlson. So yeah, anyhow, maybe

46:32

he'll go back to the chicken ranch or farm

46:34

or whatever whatever they have the chickens.

46:36

Like the factory.

46:37

I guess maybe he'll go back to wherever

46:39

they make Animal X for swans and animal

46:42

X.

46:42

We talked about animal AX, right. No, oh,

46:44

it's my favorite urban legend, Jenna. Have we talked

46:46

about animal X?

46:48

No? This way I heard the story

46:50

is you remember when Kentucky Fried Chicken

46:52

changed their name officially to KFC.

46:55

Yeah.

46:55

The the urban legend was

46:58

they had to change their name so it didn't the

47:00

word chicken because they use animal

47:04

which is known as animal X. That

47:06

is like a headless chicken with six wings.

47:08

That that's how they produce all of their chicken

47:11

in like some labs somewhere where they've got there's

47:13

like that grown non chicken

47:15

things and they're not legally allowed to call them chicken

47:18

anyhow, great fucking story.

47:21

No, it's a great it's a great story.

47:23

Whatever brain came

47:26

up with that particular urban legend is just an absolute

47:28

fucking narrative.

47:29

Genius.

47:30

Yeah, it sounds like a great movie. And fried

47:32

chicken is my favorite food in the world, number

47:34

one with a bullet. And I would eat animal

47:37

X.

47:38

You know, I try not to eat animals,

47:41

but chicken is really

47:43

good. I mean, I hate to hate to say it, I just

47:45

do. I do think chicken tastes really good. I'm

47:48

sorry, what, Jenna, why are you? What is going

47:50

on?

47:50

Like chicken?

47:50

You don't like chicken? Are you vegetarian?

47:52

I beef outing anything else? And I only do it because

47:54

I need protein.

47:56

You're like sick, you're sick from that you have chicken.

47:58

You should not look into how they produce like

48:02

it's not great, man, it's not a

48:05

lot better.

48:05

It's all bad. It's all about.

48:12

Well that is the show for this week. I guess,

48:14

like what happened is is Lyrah quizmy

48:16

on my career. Now everybody knows

48:18

everything. Now I can't write my book.

48:20

I think this was a great pitch for your book.

48:23

I actually had an agent at one point. He was like, you

48:25

should write a This sounds really

48:27

egotistical. She was like, you

48:29

should write like an autobiography, like your

48:31

life's interesting. I'm like, I don't know, like is

48:33

it like I was like, I'm not sure there's that

48:35

much there. But then I have thought about

48:38

it. Maybe someday I'll write a book.

48:40

I don't know.

48:40

You know who ghost writes memoirs?

48:43

Who?

48:44

Tucker Max?

48:45

Tucker Maxwell, I will not be.

48:46

Working very successful. He did,

48:49

Tiffany hattishes, he does all the celebrity

48:51

members.

48:51

Maybe I should talk to Tucker Max.

48:53

Should talk to Tucker Max.

48:54

I forget his claim to fame. He's like a misogynist

48:56

or I hope they serve beer in hell. Oh right, right.

48:59

He was like I'm a bad guy. Me and my bros

49:01

Are bad or something. It was like that kind of book, right.

49:03

Yeah, And I ate that ship really love.

49:06

I thought he was the funniest guy on the planet.

49:09

Is he like a pooah guy?

49:11

Is he like a no, No,

49:13

he's like I mean, he's just a nact.

49:15

I mean, he's just you know whatever. He's a conventionally

49:18

handsome, rat bro looking

49:20

guy, Like he didn't have any pua

49:23

element to him. He just was like, they

49:26

come to me thing.

49:27

I've always wondered what it'd be like to be very handsome.

49:29

That would be very cool. I think I.

49:31

Disagree with the handsome assessment of this guy.

49:33

Really, I think conventionally no,

49:36

No, We've had this conversation before. There are like people

49:38

who think Adam Driver is handsome, But in

49:40

the real world, if you met Adam Driver, most

49:42

people, if Adam Driver was an Adam Driver, most

49:45

people would be like, that guy is a weird

49:47

creep. I do not think he's handsome, Whereas

49:49

like most people would look like Chris Hemsworth and

49:51

be like, oh, yeah, that dude's a hunk.

49:53

So anyhow, you know, your talent and

49:55

personality or that's right, that's right,

49:57

incredibly huge factors

50:00

attractiveness.

50:01

My factor has been

50:03

just being able to talk people to death, just so just

50:06

wear them down, tell

50:08

them that.

50:08

They're gonna die for the answers, and

50:10

they're like, well, I only have six months to live. I should

50:12

see what happened.

50:13

Might as well just hang out with this guy right

50:15

here anyhow. Okay, So we'll be back

50:17

next week with more what future, and maybe

50:20

maybe our guests won't cancel

50:22

on us and we won't have to do yet another episode

50:24

where I tell my life story, though

50:27

there's a lot I think there are a lot of tales.

50:28

I like the idea of doing it, doing your

50:31

same life story every week, but you

50:33

just are forced to get more and more in depth, more

50:36

just.

50:36

More detail on specific moments,

50:38

just like meetings that I had with people, or

50:41

phone calls that I our long

50:43

phone calls. Well, anyhow,

50:46

So that's that's it, and we'll be back next weekend

50:48

as always. I guess I suppose I wish you

50:51

and your family the very best, but I

50:53

don't know you or your family. So is it

50:55

worth it? Are you worth it? Think about

50:57

that? Stew on that until the next episode,

51:01

Even under

51:04

the

51:05

w