381. - Bob Guccione Jr.

All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Stateside with Kai and Carter, a new podcast from The Guardian. And they are using this podcast to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions that we all have about what's happening in the world. And they do it three times a week, Jason. Does that sound familiar to you? We don't really talk about, you know, a lot of international global news items and climates and cultures and sports and things like that. We do talk about fashion and wellness, but for everything else, Kai and Carter are a great place. All right, so who couldn't use more news? Listen wherever you get your podcast. or watch on YouTube. How long gone the long national nightmare is over. Vacation is through. Back to school. Chris Black coming live to you from Los Angeles, you know, worn and weary from the road, but a little more time to recover than my illustrious co-host, DJ Them Jeans, fresh from Sicily, looking like a spit-roasted pig. How are you feeling? Not good, man. Not good at all. I'm a full zombie for the last two days ever since I landed. I've obviously been there myself in the recent past, so I can kind of relate. Is there anything you're doing to kind of help get yourself through this, or are you just kind of waiting for it to pass? Are you getting an IV drip? How many good patches do you have all over your body? Are you showering more? Are we drinking a different kind of coffee? What are we doing to kind of improve your mood? Great questions. Great questions. So I think the real issue is just sleep deprivation. I flew back. I woke up probably at like 6 p.m. L.A. time and then went to bed at 6 p.m. L.A. time like 24 hours later.

You know, just wacky-ass shit. So yesterday I woke up at 11.30 p.m. All right. So you're doing the night shift, bro. I'm doing the night shift. You're like a firefighter or something hot. Yeah. I'm always on call. And then that on call is sort of like try to quietly listen to a boring podcast to fall asleep so I don't wake anybody up. But huge improvement today. I woke up at 1.30. So it's 11.30 right now. I've been up for almost 12 hours now. So we got a full day in the can already. I hope you've accomplished something. And I imagine accomplishing something is... sitting in front of a laptop screen thinking more and more about Nathan Fielder and trying not to get a hard-on. But maybe you've done something productive. I don't know. I don't know what you've done. So if you could fill us in. Oh, I woke up. Since I wake up so early now, my life partner, God bless her, we had a great two weeks of travel. Yeah, it sounded great. It'll break you down. It was very similar. Our friend of the show, David Cho, was telling me to. listen to this american life and uh because i haven't listened to it in forever and i listened to it last night there's a story about a couple that figured out how to travel together through complaining and stuff like that uh i would recommend it to you but i know you won't listen thank you yeah you got it you got it yeah so this morning i've been i've been doing a lot of writing i was moving the body and i went and brought the lobster out To the tennis courts and hit some balls for an hour. What time are we talking about? Well, I mean, I'll wake up at 1.30 and then I just kind of try to fall back to sleep until about 5. Okay. And then I wake up and I was saying God bless my life partner because I tiptoe around the house quietly like a titmouse. But, you know, I got to grind my own beans. Of course. Fresh. Just seconds from brewing. So she said that. She's like, it's all good. Wake up whenever you want.

Every time you use that little fucking gay-ass coffee grinder, grinding those fucking beans wakes me up. So then this morning, I was like, all right, I have to figure out a plan. And I was like, do I grind the night before? Which I've done. It's fine. But I don't love the loss of freshness. No, I mean, how could you love that? I mean, I think dealing with it is asking too much. So this morning, I took the coffee grinder, filled it up. And then I tiptoed it into the guest bathroom, covered it with two towels, closed the door and locked it, just so you know. And then I got my grind. I'm pretty sure it worked, but that's sort of where I'm at with my life right now. Okay, so you're knocking on death's door. Just one quick question before we move on. Did you drink that coffee out of a hot dog straw or did you drink it just kind of regular style? Because there's some trending beverage ingesting things happening. I know you're kind of on the cutting edge. My straw is pink. Okay. But it is not a snappy hot dog. I did see that video. I was sad to see that it was apparently a planned. Yeah, it was content and not a candid video. Friend of the show, Gian, was the offensive hot dog slurper. But I do think that it looked like some New York Yankees-sponsored content by enemy of the show New York Nico. Hey, get that money, guys. Get that money. No, I mean, get the money, of course. I mean, if I could make money from baseball, I guess I would, but I fall asleep every time I think about it. Think of it as a game, not a sport. But, yeah, whenever I see things like that, I'm just like, oh, I wish this were real. Well, that's the problem with the Internet, Jason. Besides the Kith American History Museum collaboration, nothing is real. And that's kind of where I'm at today. So what time did you hit the court solo dolo with your only friend, Red Lobster? No, that was probably like 9 a.m.

See, I think you should go into, you know, former guest and friend of the show, Ryan Duffy, is a night runner. Like, he'll run at midnight, which I feel like is some serial killer behavior, but also I think that people, you got to do what you got to do to get it in. So I was thinking maybe, what if you just showed up at the courts at 4 a.m.? You know what I mean? Are there lights? Is it like the U.S. Open, or are there no lights there? I'm sure there are lights, but I don't know if they're on at four. And also, shout out to a friend of the show, Ryan Duffy, ex-guest, his documentary on... Oh, yeah. What's his name? Manny Teow. Yeah, yeah. The catfish football player that's all over Netflix, he produced that. The OG catfish. Yeah, the OG catfish. Yeah, I forgot Ryan did that. Yeah, go check that out if you haven't yet. Check it out. So, yeah, I mean, my knee's feeling good. I'm very bad at tennis. I haven't played tennis in a long time. I'm playing tomorrow with Sam Macon, so I'm going to be back on my BS in that beautiful LA heat. But I'm running the streets again. I'm hitting air one. I'm one step away from getting an IV drip. You keep talking about it, but you ain't beat me. about it what's going on let's do it should we we should probably i think we should do it with a camera crew and just kind of see how we feel i'm not really great with needles which i know is a surprise i'm i'm also not great with needles and i don't i don't like i don't like seeing blood i don't i really don't like an iv drip situation i don't i don't either but i feel like it's the only way to fix you coldplay voice i don't know if there's another way that's going to get you back it could take upwards of seven days for you to re-acclimate And we don't have that kind of time. We have a lot of podcasts due this week. Yeah, but I mean, will me having a bag full of designer drugs, you know, how much lion, is the lion's mane going to change my life? I don't believe it really. I think the Ivy shit's kind of fake. I don't think it's fake. I think it's... Not as good as people say it is, but I think it's somewhere in between. I mean, as a person who gets the B12 shots, those definitely work. And the IV is just an advanced version of that, really. Sure. So I don't know. But I just want you to feel better because, like I said, it's back to school. It's back to work. I mean, we tortured – I mean, the excitement I'm feeling to be podcasting again, it's –

You needed this. You needed this. This is your therapy. I needed this. It's just life is boring without how long gone. I'm sure the millions of listeners would agree with us. You know what I mean? They had to go listen to other podcasts, I guess, to fill the void, which is, I mean, as a person who doesn't listen to podcasts, that's probably tough to do. It's been tough. It's been tough, but it did need to happen, and it was, I don't know. I mean, it really felt like kind of like wrestling an anaconda, and it really did take kind of two weeks. to wear it down, if that makes sense. You know what I mean? Like to get that grind set, that hustler's ambition out of my system all the way. I mean, I was talking about the detox and the tree talks, and it really was a little white knuckle in, a little cold turkey in, and it was not easy in a multitude of ways. And I think we learned just how dependent we are. On this crazy thing called podcasting, right? Yeah. Well, it's also – this does pay us money, so there is that benefit. There's also the benefit of – I did notice that our revenue has gone down in the last two weeks. Revenue has slowed to a halt, and I'm sure people – I'm sure there are plenty of people revisiting the archives. You know what I mean? But I do think that the – I agree with you, but to me it's like what would I rather do? Spend money to eat mid-carbs or – Talk to my friend and possibly a guest for money, and it's a no contest kind of situation. It's true. It's like young thugs plea in the Rico case. But I understand that some of us need to kind of relax and reset, and I'm glad that you were able to do that. I mean, it's not – because I'm in the same boat as you. I agree with you. I would prefer to do all of that. But I also, it's kind of like I needed the arms, you know, a big tan forearms of Sicilian man to just pin me down and just have me just be like, all right, just stop. Just stop everything for two weeks. Yeah, I'm sure you, you know, read.

10 to 15 pages of a book. I read 400 pages of a book. I appreciate the jail reference, but I did see you mid-trip, and I didn't see any kind of pecs developing from all the push-ups and pull-ups that you were doing in your cell. Oh, there was no fitness going on whatsoever, and that does lead me to another talking point. Many of our fans have... been on vacation as well they're all great people who enjoy traveling uh-huh and then you'll you'll kind of freak out because you're like okay i've done nothing but eat carbs for the last two weeks yeah i haven't seen the inside of a pilates studio in three weeks oh you know i'm drinking every single night i truly can't relate to any of this and i was also gone for two and a half weeks i want you to continue but you can you could understand how that might be for other people yeah like before no of course We live a pretty regimented lifestyle here where we kind of are very in control of our lives. And then when you're on vacation, you're a little more out of control, or at least you should be if you're doing it right. I was feeling like shit. I was feeling bloated. I was feeling guilty for not working out. When you take that away, you really kind of get a little lost. And then you also feel like, oh, as soon as I come back and I step on the scale at Equinox in Glendale, Well, I've gained 10 pounds, 20 pounds, whatever it's going to be, and every time. I'm going to guess you didn't gain any weight. Maybe you lost weight. I did not gain any weight, and I don't think anyone ever does either, but it's like a mental thing, and you just feel it. It's a feeling. No, I mean, feeling good. uh is not necessarily you know uh dependent on on weight and i i think you know and i don't weigh myself you did learn something you know i don't weigh myself i think that's a fool's errand tj voice i i don't i don't weigh myself i think it's pointless i feel good i look good i'm great yeah i i think i think what the what what the science behind it is i i did gain you know let's say three pounds of of aperol spritz fat during those two weeks

But then I was dehydrating myself so much and in such poor health that I lost about three pounds of water weight that I may never get back. I see. So it kind of evens out in the wash. That's great. Well, I mean. That being said, I never want to hear about Italy again. Great, because I have a lot to say about Sicily. It's a little bit different. No, I mean, it sounds like, from what you were telling me in confidence, it sounded like it was a big old garbage can, and they just happened to have a beach there as well. But if the table-side prawns were better than anticipated, please. Let me know. There's a lot to cover, and I want to talk to our guest about it as well because he has a travel website, and I'm sure he's tangled with the fairer sex many a time, but really kind of forcing yourself to enjoy it. And I think the kicker is what I plan on doing for the rest of my life is if I'm going to have to take – if I'm going to have to take – So what I'm planning to do for the rest of my life, okay, this is a big declaration. Everybody, I hope you're sitting down. I hope you're sitting down. So every year, I'm going to have to take a two-week – I won't use the V word because it's not a vacation. It will be two weeks of travel, which will be more work than my normal life at home, which I've dialed in pretty well. That's right. But it's good to shake it up and make your life difficult. I have to travel to a different country every year. The only stipulation, that country has to have marijuana be illegal or either illegal or very tough to get and the quality is so poor. So like when I was in London, obviously I could have found some skunk weed somewhere, but everyone says it's not even really worth it and blah, blah, blah. So that's the key. And then when I do that, it's more of like a rehab. It's like I'm going to Promises for two weeks. Jason, it's not like a rehab because you drink all day long. Yeah, but the trick is I don't want to be doing it. I don't want to be drinking a beer at 11 a.m. by the pool. I would rather be taking a bomb-ass edible and coming up with cool ideas for content. But instead, I have to drown my galaxy brain.

And so much suds. And I don't want to be doing that. Yeah, you looked like you were having a terrible time drinking those suds. All I got to do is go to a country, you know, so. Okay, well. Especially if I'm having a tough month, if I become like truly addicted to marijuana where it's like an issue, then I'll have to go to places, you know, like. Like Cambodia or Singapore. Maybe, where they arrested you for that? Well, I want to be kind of publicly caned. I don't want to get eight years in jail. But something pretty severe. Maybe they're pulling out fingernails or trading me for someone. But I don't want to go to a WNBA country. Nobody does. Nobody does. Well, I mean... I'm glad that this trip has led you to figure out your life. I'm sobering up. By getting drunk every day. No, of course, and I can't wait until you – you'll really sober up when you check that Apple MasterCard bill, but we'll save that. We'll save that for a later episode. Just like I don't check the scale, you can't check the MasterCard bill either. No, but I think this is – well, it's an MX bill first and foremost, and I did have to use my MasterCard many times because it's in some of the more remote villages. Americano Express. Yeah, when you were going to gentrify the remote villages of Sicily where they were wearing fake hair in Preston and touching your girl's ass, they only accepted MasterCard. Please, please, no. They run over your foot with a scooter and then pickpocket you. You've got to watch out. For the second year running in Italy, the highest selling... Most successful clothing brand is still undisputed. Pyrex is still number one. Pyrex is still making money over there, and I hope my guys are getting a check off that, but it seems like it might be bootlegging. I'm going to talk to Matthew Williams about that because I think the Givenchy legal team could probably kind of step in and help out over there. I was trying to explain this to my life partner.

And I was like, damn, because you'll see like a 70-year-old grandpa wearing like a camouflage Pyrex basketball set, like shorts and a jersey. So sick. Or you'll see like a very hot like 23-year-old model chick wearing like a bodycon dress and it has like the Pyrex logo on the front. You'll see, you know, a two-year-old child wearing Pyrex onesies, you know. It's a billion-dollar brand over there, and I want to interview somebody who works at the actual Pyrex company. Well, Pyrex is not a company, Jason, and it's no longer... No, no, I'm talking about the measuring... Oh, oh, oh. It was originally a bootleg based off of the Pyrex measuring cut. That's right, Jason, because that's where we cook crack, where I'm from. All the streetwear designers that enjoy cooking crack on the stove in their trap. And there's Givenchy Trapp serving all the fiends. They were serving out of the Pirates. Yeah, so I want to know, like, you know, the company that has been making high-quality glass measuring cups for probably 100 years. Not high quality. You know, somewhere in Dayton, Ohio, or whatever their HQ is. Yeah. Are they even aware that... Yes, of course. They probably tried to shut it down, and they lost, and now everybody's good. I mean, look, what are you going to do? I'm sure that they tried to fight it and lost, and don't worry. I don't feel bad for them. Pyrex collaborated with Supreme. They're in on the whole thing, bro. So we can all eat is what you're saying. We can all eat, and the reality is no matter what you make in this crazy, fucked-up world we live in, Jason, you can't escape the long arm of streetwear. No matter what you do. Street Rare will find you, they will take you, and they will turn you out. Like the Grim Reaper. Nothing is safe, Jason, and that's something that we should look out for. Because if we start seeing gone bootlegs in Italy, we will both know we've made it and that we're losing out on countless dollars.

And I know better than to tangle with the Sicilian Mafia. Trust me. No, no, no. I want you to make it back so we can continue to do this show. I don't want you to die over there. Yeah, lastly, before our guest comes on, I was on the plane, and I had that great situation where one person has first class and one person has economy. One person. One person. Your life partner. Oh, I see. Okay. And normally, if I've ever been in that situation, I give it up. But this time, I did not give it up. You chose to be not chivalrous because you'd been dragged through that boot-shaped country, forced to eat and drink for weeks, and you said, this is my time for revenge, bitch. Kind of. I mean, I used to... I don't know what it was. It was a long story involving the ticket booking, and she planned all out. It doesn't seem that long. It seems like TJ came up, and somebody else fucked up, is what it sounds like to me. It was bad, but... um for some reason i was like you know what i'm gonna do this i think i i think i deserve it and and she agreed and it was all good but i was i was sitting in in like row one seat one you know like best seat in the house whatever i a ticket that i bought with my own money not from like some other business thing or whatever like i was proud of myself and i was feeling feeling myself and then the person sitting next to me was a 10 year old child Yeah, that's the thing, man. That's the thing. When you check into the hotel, it's $1,000 a night, and you realize it's just kids running around. It's the same thing. It's like sometimes the mean parents, who may not have as much money as they wish they had, they'll sit in first class and then put the kids in the back. Yeah, yeah. Well, this family was so rich. And also this 10-year-old, first I was like, oh, he's a cool 10-year-old. He's just pulling out his iPad, and he's going to watch football. videos or whatever for the entire 12-hour flight. But instead, he was an Italian kind of TikTok vlogger star. How do you know he was a star? You're seeing numbers? What is your gauge? He was a little too hot. How old do you think this little bitch was? Ten. He's about ten years old. So the entire 12-hour flight, no hyperbole, he was recording himself.

on video talking into his camera the whole fucking time. He took his shirt off at one point. He was flexing into the camera. Bro, you are lying, dude. Come on. And then he did this thing where, you know how, like, every kind of, like, TikToker vlogger bro has, like, hair where, like, the bangs are, like, in the front. Like, it's, like, weird fucked up TikToker hair. And he had, like, normal kind of hair, but the bangs were, like, covering his forehead. He would take his bangs with one hand and lift them up and then do like kind of like a duck pouty face into the camera. And he probably did that motion, you know, maybe four to five hundred times over this. And he was talking to himself. for 11 hours straight. Did this distract you from Ocean's Eleven, or were you able to kind of concentrate on your film? Yeah, it was fucked up. Okay, so did you try to get a cameo, or did you just let him do his thing? Yeah, I got a couple cameos, but he eventually also did a thing where he didn't want to touch the ground. He was wearing Yeezys, of course, and he took his Yeezys off for comfort reasons, and he wanted to walk around. And, like, record himself, but he didn't want to walk on the floor with his bare feet because it's disgusting. So he would kind of monkey crawl on all the business class pods, like the armrests in the back and the seats. And he would, like, walk over aisles to go talk to his family members. And not a single person stopped him. Not a single flight attendant said anything. Their mom didn't care. It was one of the craziest things I've ever seen in my life. For that long, I wonder, for that kind of behavior to go unchecked in such a way, it makes me think that this guy might have been paying for the flights for the whole family. My thoughts exactly. He's a cash cow. Yeah, maybe his star is actually higher than we even realize based on this. It's just so nice to be back in America. I can't stress that enough, Jason.

It's like I'm learning to drive again. I had to reacclimate. It was like when I went to Easton to see Hunter, it was like I had seen a ghost. I'm not able to push as much weight as I was pushing before I left, but he's getting me back there, thank God. Have you had any comfort food? Obviously, pizza and pasta are out. I never want to see it again. Have you had... Have you had any kind of meals that warmed your cockles and reminded you, like a burger and fries maybe? No, no. I keep an Asian household over here in Glendale. You know that, Chris. So mainly we've been craving rice around here, around these parts. You keep an Asian household, all right. Yeah, yeah. I don't want to see those hard drives that say Asian household. Hey, come on now. Hey, come on. It's all in the cloud nowadays, brother. No, no, I agree. I mean, we've been eating a lot of... Sushi, even though we had a lot of sushi in Paris, I was craving it. But I think that it's something we don't really talk about. Pasta and pizza are good, but they're not that good. They are good. And this is a subject that we were talking about a lot. And she would just say like, oh, eventually whenever I'm on a trip, my body will just start craving rice because it's just, you know, it's in my DNA or whatever. And she would be like, what are you craving when you get back? And I was like, I'm truly craving the absence of food. I just want nothing. I just want nothing. Well, the problem with vacation is because there's nothing to do, the only kind of things in your day are meals because there's truly nothing to do. I built my life around it, Stevie Nicks' voice. That's all I do to begin with, so it's fine. It becomes exhausting. It's exhausting. Eating is for losers is what we've discovered, and I'm glad that you're kind of on board with that now. It's something I've been kind of preaching for a while, but now I finally have DJ Them Jeans on board. I was also craving... Drip coffee. I read a great book on my flight, actually. It's called Dirtbag Massachusetts by a guy named Isaac Fitzgerald, which I quite liked. Okay. And I enjoyed that and finished that. And then I was also able to watch some films, Jason. You know I'm anti-movie, but on the plane, obviously, there's no choice. And I was able to dip into the genre that I think I most identify with when flying.

uh is in play and that is six in the city too no like a little more of like a thriller with cron like the departed but lighter you know what i mean so like i watch oceans like a heist maybe you know what i mean like italian job you watch oceans 12 in roma i watched oceans 12 a little departed a little jason born I go. I go. It's such a good movie, dude. OK, so you want to see a little, you know, you want to see some like Audis driving around a little in Carlo. Yeah, but I watched. So so unfortunately, I did watch No Time to Die. The the James Bond film with the Billie Eilish theme song. And that shit, even even on a nine hour flight, that shit being three hours pissed me off. The only saving grace was – That's crazy. It's crazy. It's three hours long. The only saving grace is the beautiful French face of Lea Seydoux. A legend. That saved me. But, yeah, I mean, we need to talk about my birthday, bro. And I'm in the throes of planning a soiree to celebrate my 40th year. CB40. CB40. 9-11. Yeah. Remains like it's 9-11. And I just want to give shout-outs – shout-out to you, actually, Jason, for kind of – helping out with the DJ equipment, you know, because that's something that I kind of leaned on you for, and you've come through. Because I feel like people don't think you support me that much. They think I kind of prop you up, but you actually just don't do much for me. But I kind of want to turn – for the fall 2022, I kind of want to turn that narrative around and show people like a different side of TJ. Luckily, I do have connections in the DJ rental community. And shout out to our good friends over at Dart. If you ever need any rental gear here in Los Angeles, my man Michael David over there will sort you out. Yeah, he's hot, too. It's fucked up. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want to rent gear from a guy that looks like he should be on stage, but this is where we're at. Yeah, all the guys that I've rented DJ equipment of through the years, you could imagine that they weren't, you know, fi hadids.

you know there were more uh you know there are more foos gone wild types yeah of course no of course and i'm glad that i'm glad that uh that that were sorted out but i wanted to you know if you do get an invite to cb40 and you think that you're up to snuff and you could go back to back with someone like dj them jeans Is this a public call-out for a private party? I like this. That's right. It's a public call-out that if you think your sticks are stocked and you're ready to plug in to the digital 1200s and go B2B with Mikey or TJ, then by all means, I dare you. Good freaking luck. Are there any professional DJs attending your birthday? Is A-Track on the guest list? Do I have something to worry about? No, unfortunately. Am I doing all right? Diplo said that he would be there if I could get six CDJs, and I said that was a little bit out of budget for this event. So I don't know. I'm going to guess there's some people who consider themselves to be DJs, Jason. I'm going to guess there's going to be people who have been paid to DJ before. What does that really mean? Right. The word professional DJ nowadays is a little blurry. It's blurry. And I want to make a quick call out right now while we're kind of checking things off the docket, catching up, that we now, not only, Jason, as podcasters at How Long Gone, do we have to compete with celebrities, actors, musicians, Bruce Springsteen, the former president of the United States. Now we're competing with literal British royals. Megan Markle, the best scammer of all time, has now launched a podcast, and her first episode is with – it's called Archetypes, and it's with Serena Williams. Spotify is obviously – they love us. They don't love us as much as Megan Markle. Who's more famous? It's anyone's guess. When does this end, Jason? When can real podcasters stay at the top? Why do we have to compete with these celebrities? The only thing that will make it end, I guess, is when – Podcasts stop being an easy thing to make money at. We've talked about it before, the through lines with comparing it to DJing. Anyone can look at a podcast and be like, I could do that. That's just chatting. I chatted up. But luckily all of these celeb shows, they kind of fall by the wayside pretty soon and they kind of crumble. And we realized that Meghan Markle is actually, you know, no Mark Maron, Markle Maron herself.

Marco Marin archetypes on Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. You do have to be good at it. If you suck ass at it at an audio-based platform, it doesn't matter if you're hot. It doesn't matter if you scammed the royal family. I'm sure the Julia Fox podcast, all three episodes of it, were awesome and really fucking sick and life-altering. These things kind of fizzle and fade after a while, and luckily it is not a hot person's game. You've got to stick it out. Jason, we do have a guest today. Bob Guccione Jr. is an American publisher. He's the son of the late penthouse founder, Bob Guccione, of course. He launched Spin Magazine, a title that Jason and I both grew up with. He's done a handful of other things. He's got an interesting dating history, which I really want to get into. Let's give Bob a jingle and see what he has to say. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Squarespace. Obviously, Jason, you and I spend a lot of time on the World Wide Web, so do our peers, our listeners, our friends, our colleagues, 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, you know, 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 2.3 version upgrade. Boom, boom, boom. Get the analytics going. Raise some money. Show your investor all of your cool analytics of what's going on. They're going to want to get in early. And we can use Blueprint AI to make your website look as professional as your competition, if not more.

So head to squarespace.com slash howlong for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code howlong to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by a new podcast from The Guardian stateside with Kai and Carter. This is covering a lot of our bases, Jason. It's trying to slow down. The news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what's happening in the world. And I know you particularly have quite a lot of questions. A lot of questions. But how often? Because we do this podcast three times a week and that's a sweet spot. How many times do they do? Three times a week. And I 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 podcast. You can watch it on YouTube. It's three times a week. And who couldn't use more news? Especially when it's not from here, let's say. Give it a listen. Give it a listen. Oh, this is huge for me personally. This episode of How I'm Gone. It was brought to you by TaskRabbit. Oh, baby, let me tell you something. This is not a joke. I use TaskRabbit a lot because I can't do anything. You need some art hung? TaskRabbit. You need something put together? A cabinet? Got to reach that cheese grater on the top shelf? TaskRabbit. Anything you need, TaskRabbit can take care of it for you. How it works, TaskRabbit connects you with skilled taskers in your area. They can help you move. They can assemble furniture, repairs, yard work, mounting, and more. You can search for a tasker based on cost, skill set, availability, and past client reviews so you know exactly who's showing up and can have confidence that they know what they're doing because taskers have assembled over 3.4 million pieces of furniture, completed 700,000 home repairs. handled 1.5 million moves, and the numbers are just going up, Jason. Yeah, throw a little money at the problem. It's not so expensive, and that job that you really don't want to do is something that another person out in the world is very good at doing and would gladly do it in exchange for a little bit of money. So when life happens, your to-do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get $15 off your first task at TaskRabbit.com or grab the TaskRabbit app.

using promo code HOWLONG. Taskers book up faster, especially for same-day tasks. So book Trusted Home Help today. That is $15 off your first task using promo code HOWLONG with the TaskRabbit app or at TaskRabbit.com. Bob, where are you coming to it? Are you in your man cave right now? I'm in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania? No, we live here now. We got away from it all. About 10 years ago. What's up in Pennsylvania? So this is not a witness protection or anything like that? I didn't say it was. I didn't say it was. But we don't have to go there. I'd rather talk about dating. You and your long-term life partner moved to Pennsylvania. Yeah, we did. 12 years ago? 10 years ago, roughly. We had this house that we used for weekends, and then we both got sick of the city. And actually, I got invited to teach at the University of Mississippi, Ole Miss. teach journalism. So I went down there for a year, taught journalism badly, but nonetheless, you know, I did in fact teach it. You know, then we moved back and we were sitting on the deck on an August evening and just, well, this is pretty nice. We don't want to go back to New York. We really were getting like the hives thinking about moving back to New York City. I mean, I lived there 38 years. I was born there, grew up in England, but I was born in New York City. So I'm a real New Yorker, but we're done. We were done. And we just like the country life. We stay here. Occasionally spend some time in Boston. So what do you do for fun out there? Do you have a farm? Yeah, I like a farm. You got animals? Like what's the vibe? I cook a lot. I cook a lot. We have a little dog. It doesn't quite count as animals, but we have an animal. And I cook a lot. And, you know, we both work from home and publishing a travel site. You probably know that from your extensive. Forensic research, I mean. That's right. Yeah, we kind of have a crack research team that we send out into the field to kind of get all the intel we can before a guest of your stature joins us. So you're dead on. Excellent. I was probing there, making sure. Of course. So that's it.

cooking do you do? Now, are you a barbecue guy? No, no. Is it just whatever you happen to catch in one of your traps? Yes, yes. Are there markets nearby as well? A lot of it's roadkill. I cook Italian mostly. There's a story today. I was married very early in life. I was 24. Married to an English woman, a great woman, who actually works with me on my travel site, Wanderlust. She's actually my managing editor. We obviously stayed great friends. Very interesting. Very interesting. Yeah, she went to cook pasta when they were in England. And she literally put cold water on the stove, stuck the pasta in it, and then she opened a jar of something foul-looking. And I was like, this is not a life I'm preparing for. So you're saying that the Italian cuisine that your ex-wife was preparing led her to be your ex-wife. That was the last straw for you. Yeah. It was the first straw. It was the first day, too. But no, no, seriously, what happened was I called my mother up in New Jersey, and she talked me through a recipe. And from there on, I cooked. And to this day, 42 years later, because it was 1980, 42 years later, we still joked that Camilla just actually deliberately cooked a crap meal, knowing I would do all the cooking thereafter. So she was not so stupid. No, that's a classic move. Jason and I both actually just returned from Italy, and the thought of eating pasta is vomit-inducing right now for me. But we have a theory, actually. Just for now. We have a theory, actually, that food in Italy is mid. It's not that great. What do you think? What do you think? Like, have you had a life-changing bite of an al dente noodle looking over the beautiful fields of Tuscany? That sounded very gay. Just to call it out. Don't worry, Bob. Don't worry, Bob. This is a different kind of podcast. All right, brother. In the culinary sense, I indeed have had many a noodle that I found transcendent. And, you know. No, we're talking about food, Bob. Yeah, yeah. No, we are back. Okay, back to food. Sure. Sure, whatever you want.

So, fantastic. I think Italian food is the best in the world. I think you're mad, you're wrong, but that's okay. Different opinions. I agree. I think that Italian food is good, but I know that it's a very difficult argument to make and an unpopular opinion, but I might wager that the Italian food in L.A. and New York in 2020, by and large, is a little bit better and more... I don't know. You can count on it more than in Italy. Really? And I might feel the same way about sushi in Japan as well compared to L.A. And I know that's very – Horatical. Do all the best chefs in Italy leave and go somewhere else to the big city to make it? They do, by the way. They actually do. They come to America. Most of them come to New York. Yeah. But then they replace other great chefs. You know, I think that the food in Italy is transcendent, but I don't actually mean the – classic, famous Italian restaurants in Italy. I can't remember the names. Rome has bad food. Rome has the Italian food, the equivalent of which you would find in a bad area of Pittsburgh. Very, very poor food. No, I've had the best pasta I've ever had was in Rome. Really, you have no credibility with me. You're easy targets. You're easy going to think it's the best you've ever had. I think generally Rome... It's not as good as the countryside. Now, there's a restaurant in the countryside called La Frateria. It's in a drug rehab. It's my favorite restaurant in the world. The whole place is a drug rehab. It's a 12th century convent slash monastery, both 30 years, converted by an Italian priest who many years ago started something called Mondo X, which was a new form of... where you became very immersed in the land, you grew the food, you cooked everything, you fixed everything in the place, and you worked. Now, the recidivism of the drug addicts they take through this system is 1%. Okay. There's no drug rehab in the world. Did you go to this for rehab or did you just go to eat? No, no, for food. Okay, okay. I just want to clear that up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm still on the run from rehab. But I was taken there by a friend, and I've been going back ever since. I wrote about it on Wanderlust. I'll send you guys later the link. It's an amazing place. It literally is remarkable. Do the people who are being rehabilitated help out with the cooking? Oh, yeah. No, no. They do all the work. It is only them. It's a Michelin-starred restaurant. The French don't like giving Italians Michelin stars. True. antithetical to them. So you can imagine how good it really is. Interesting. And the most amazing food I've ever had. I think the best three meals of my life were the last three I had there. But a lot of the country food is so simple because everybody cooks well in Italy. So the only offer is that people don't feel like cooking for a night or washing dishes. They go down the road to a little cafe or a little restaurant in their little village in the mountains. And it's as good as... Best food in New York. Sure, sure. This rehab restaurant has my interest piqued, I have to say. Oh, it is amazing. It is amazing. It's also a small hotel with six rooms. But they take the view. They take two views. One is that every guest who stays there is an angel. They mean an angel, like from heaven. That's how they view you. Not like what Jason calls his favorite stripper, like a real. Exactly. We could use a little bit of the guest. is an angel. That's sort of the next step after the customer is always right. Yeah, it beats the customer is always right. Yeah, it's the next level. It is. The customer is eternally right. They mean internally. And the other thing about it is they don't really care. I mean, it's hard to find. They do not have a website. They have an email address. They have a phone they never answer. You know, it's really hard to actually get a reservation. That sounds like Italy to me. Yeah, exactly. But Italy on the steroids, you know, it's really hard. They don't care. You know, when I was there with my girlfriend, I said, you know, I can't help but notice we're the only people here. And in the restaurant, the first two nights, we're the only people in the restaurant. And they said, we don't care. We're about making people's lives better. It's incidental as to whether anybody shows up. Wow.

That's fine. If you do, we cook a meal for you. If you don't, we cook a meal for ourselves. That's how Jason and I feel about podcasting, actually. You know what I mean? It's like, look, we're doing this, and if people listen, that's great. And luckily for us, people listen. We don't have a Michelin star yet, but we're working on that kind of space, too. The French don't like us either, Bob. No, the French don't like anybody. The French don't like anybody. I honestly like... I don't get it. I just don't get it. I don't like them either, but I don't find an opportunity to be rude to them enough. Well, you have to look harder. You have to look harder. There are opportunities. I want to go to some French places just to be rude, you know, in America. It's a good plan. You can do a tour. But I think they could beat me at my own game, unfortunately. They invented it. Yeah, they did. They did. They invented it in souciance, which is a French word, no less. But Art Buckwood once wrote a great column about the French. He says, don't be upset if the French. don't like you, they don't like themselves. I like that. That's my new outlook on life. What is your relationship to France? You would choose Italy every time? Oh, yeah. But France isn't far behind. France is a beautiful country. There's a town called Veselay in the south of France. Not the Riviera, but south of Paris, I should say. And there was a restaurant there called L'Esperance, now gone, closed. I think the guy, the chef owner, I think, just retired or died. But that was the most extraordinary restaurant I've ever been to. And he, I forget his name, and you wouldn't know it, I'm sure, because, I mean, I can't remember if it wasn't known here in America. And this was all pre-internet days. And very, very nice and beloved by his staff. All before the TV chefs, you know, before the crazy chefs. Well, would you say that you've been beloved by your staff over the years? What do you think? Oh, I would say that. I would indeed. But I am delusional. And I lie. That in the context, you know, you can imagine what I really think. No, I am hopeful that I am beloved by some of my stuff. I think that's the best you can shoot for, to be honest. I mean, you can't expect everyone to love you if you have any sort of personality. No, exactly. Or you don't drive. You know, I remember one day, it's a true story. My assistant was leaving work. He was a guy who was leaving work. And I said, oh, what are you doing tonight? That's just as one does. He says, oh, I'm going to a meeting.

of a group of people that formed that hate you. There was actually a group that met for drinks once a month. And my assistant did not hate me, but he had been invited to come along. I'm sorry. So you're saying to me there was a group of people like AA style that would meet in a church basement. To talk about how much they dislike you. Yes. And these are former staff members or these are just people that don't like, just general people that don't like you? They hadn't opened it up to the general public, unfortunately. They would have been deluged, no doubt. These are all people whose lives you were paying for. Yes, exactly. And they'd apparently at some point probably fired. Anyway, they met, I think eventually dissipated from boredom. me for so long. That's what I'm shooting for. I do think that if you're trying to do something in life, you will upset people. If you don't try to do something in life, then you won't upset people. But I've been very driven my whole life. Driven not by money as much. I've been rich and I've been poor. Honestly, to be very, very honest, I haven't been happier rich. I was more comfortable. See, I don't like to hear that because money is kind of the driving force in my life. Some people even call me Capitalist Chris on this podcast. So you're telling me that I can make a lot more money and it'll make me more comfortable, but I won't be happier necessarily. Necessarily, no, you won't. I mean, you'll enjoy the finer things in life. When I sold Spin, I made a fortune. And a friend of mine was managing it at the New York Post. And he said, so what does it feel like? And I said, it feels like everything is free. Because they can afford everything. And, you know, that was interesting and nice. And the other thing I thought was the house wine got better. You know, whenever I drank it, I was much, much, much better. One day in the office, you know, I used to have this thing. If we worked past six, I would get some beers. Cool boss alert. Yeah, exactly. And yet they hated me. And yet they hated me. They're like, Bob, we want Coke, not beer. Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's worse. So anyway, I...

Brought some beers in. And in those days, we had no computers. So we had to produce the magazine by, you know, scalpels and gum and sheets of paper and all that stuff. So you could be there for hours longer. And so I'd get some beers and get some food in. And one day I said to my assistant, I said, oh, you know what? I really fancy a glass of wine. Here's the wine I like. I wrote it down. There's the wine store around the corner. And that's where I get on my way out. So he went off and he brought back a couple of bottles of this Margot. Now, this was 19... 90-something. So it was 1982 Margot, which is like the best Margot year since 1955. Anyway, so it was great 1982 Margot. And the next night, we were working late. I sent my assistant to go get some more wine and some more food. And the third night we were working late, I'm walking out the door because I actually have a dinner I have to go to. And one of my staff shouts out, More and more ago. That's what the fuck you people drinking Budweiser a week ago. Now you're a wine connoisseur. You shot yourself in the foot with that. You're being too nice to the staff. And that's something that I'm going to take away from this. You can only be so nice. You know what I mean? Because then they start walking all over you. Exactly. They walk all over me. They can't get a taste for the Grand Cru. No, exactly. Thank God they didn't know about Poyak. So did you... So I want to understand what the feeling is. So you sold spin. You made a fortune. When you say fortune, can you tell us how much? What would I make in those days? $20 million or something? It was a lot of money. It was a lot of money at the time, 1997. It was a lot of money any time. $20 million, look, it's a lot of money. I was a kid, too. I was only 40-something. So you're giving me hope because I'm turning 40 in a couple weeks. $20 million is just right in my eyesight. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. You can do a lot with $20 million. That's right. So did you blow it on fun stuff or did you make some bad investments? How much did we lose? You know what I mean? I mean, the truth, of course, is it was all strippers and drugs and alcohol. No, not at all. I invested in a new magazine. The magazine did lose a lot of money, sadly.

But I had fun. Which magazine was that? Was that Gear? It started a magazine called Gear. Yeah, exactly. Which, you know, ironically was in many ways better than it's been. It was smarter in some ways. It was actually, we had some profound journalism in it. And it was a beautiful magazine. But it came out at a time when the dot-com bust happened and the media world sort of pancaked inwards. And it was very tough. And I had not raised money. So I was... So you just did the thing that they tell you not to do. Absolutely. Just pay it out of pocket. And they're right. Let me tell you, they're right. I want it on my gravestone. They're right. We've been told by a few people on the show and in our personal lives about how much writers of note used to get paid for a magazine cover story. Because now, obviously, it's pennies on the dollar. You know, were you paying big money for the cover story? Oh, yeah. I mean, both that spin and gear. I was a great believer when you paid writers what it took to get them to write for you. I mean, I think that that's the part of the job that people forget about because I think it's like the making a magazine thing is complicated, but there is the discovery element, and that seems fun. Oh, absolutely, yeah. That was always fun. Well, to be the boss and not get bogged down in the bullshit and still be able to do that part is probably – Well, you do get bogged down in the bullshit. There's no getting away from it. And it's not a failure of management. It is the entrepreneurial path. You have no choice. You know, you have to do everything in the beginning. You know, I used to, with a scalpel, literally edit the pages as they went after the printer. You know, we had one word over, one line over. You had to go in and edit it, then repaste a little line. Well, it sounds ridiculous to talk about it today in 2022. But now I have such a graphic eye, even on the digital, you know, frame. I'll see something that's off by 60th of an inch or something, whatever it is on my screen. Because of that.

using the scalpel for so many years and that precision. A great friend of mine once said, no experience is wasted. And that's a great piece of wisdom. I don't think I've ever heard anything wise from my whole life. Because we don't think of bad experiences or mundane experiences or our own wrong-headedness or going down the wrong road for as long as we go down it. We don't think of that as actually being valuable, but it all is in some way. And life is really an attitude. You either have the attitude that I'm fine, I'm getting somewhere, I'm learning something, or you have the attitude that everything goes wrong is the only way it could possibly go. So it's a choice sometimes. Can you teach Chris how to do that? I can try. No, I mean, because we travel is a big subject on your mind, and Chris and I sort of have been wrestling with that concept of It might not be something that we like quite as much, but it is an experience that is not wasted in my mind, and I'm just sort of turning that corner now. And, you know, maybe Chris will get there one day as well. I'm not sure, but I feel like you've probably done a lot of traveling with a lot of life partners through the decades. Are there any travel tips on kind of getting along when you're on the road with your main squeeze? Oh, wow. What a heavy question. Aside from throwing money at the problem, of course. No, throw money at the problem. That's the only answer. Believe me. If you don't have the money, steal it. It's a disaster otherwise. It's funny. We did a piece on this about what's the expectation when you go away with somebody if you haven't slept with them already, which is, by the way, don't ever do that. I've done that. because you have to get that out of the way. That has to either work or not work, be a factor or not be a factor. And generally, you know, look, it's the same for life. Just respect the partner. And I have learned, and I've learned it late in life, the woman may not always be right, but if you treat her late, she's always right, it will usually work out to your benefit. Now, I don't mean that to sound sexist, although I guess maybe it is.

But it isn't meant to be. It's meant to be that sometimes we guys don't realize how dominating and domineering we can be. Yeah. And sometimes we need to just imagine, from their point of view, I've had a few of the most important women in my life, including my current girlfriend who I've been with for nearly 20 years. She has pointed out that you don't know how you sound sometimes. You sound, you know, aggressive or too overpowering. So I have learned to look through other people's eyes. I've gotten a lot of feedback like that as well, actually. So that's good to know that I'm kind of not the only guy floating in the ether. But I think some of it just comes with age. I'm a little more aware of my presence and how I speak and how it can come off, especially in my personal life. Because, unfortunately, in our business, the more aggressive and wild you sound, rewarded for it. Yeah, it's true. It's a confusing thing not to take work home with you. You know what I mean? You really do just mellow out with age. I'm sure Bob can attest. It's just like I don't care about things as much as I used to care about them in a nice way, I think. I have mellowed and then they've hit a certain point in life called senility. So now I'm beyond mellowing. You do mellow as you get older. You also get more comfortable in your own skin. And that makes you much more elastic. You stretch to the situation easier. And if you're smart enough to pay attention as you get older, you realize that some principles just always count. Think about other people as you wish they would think about you. It's funny how you invariably look at the stuff you were taught as a kid in school, religiously, if you grew up in that. as I did a Catholic school environment, and how much of it just makes sense, you know, treat others as you wish you'd be treated. You know, it sounds so simple, we don't do it. For 30, 40 years later, we realize that's where to do it. Yeah, there's a reason that that old adage has stood the test of time. It's important in this, we live in this terribly woke time, where nobody can sustain a criticism. Well, nobody can learn from that. We don't criticize each other.

And we don't say, well, look, you know, I don't agree with that. There's not a way of looking at something. Right or wrong, at least we're having a dialogue. And the problem I have with the politically correct age is it actually stifles and strangles dialogue. I'm not interested in dialogue. It's interested in Talibanic imperatives. Very simple to the Taliban. There's one way of doing things. That's the way we're going to do it. If you don't do it, we'll stone you in the public square. In this case, in our case, public square is social media. That's right. Twitter is the public square. I agree. It really is. And people get stoned there. They get stoned to death there. And so, you know, as a lifelong writer and editor, the one thing that I, the currency that runs through my spirit is words. I think words are very, very important. And I think that there's no real wrong way to use them. I mean, if you use them offensively, categorically offensively, if you use them aggressively and hatefully, then people will dismiss you. The public will recalibrate you and isolate you and ghettoize you appropriately. But criticism is not the same thing as hate speech. You know, one can be critical of something and it's not hate speech. And I think that the attempt to crush, to literally just atomize the criticism is a terrible, terrible, terrible trend because it stifles dialogue. To me, it's interesting because you, I mean, you know, like especially in your time of spin, criticism was a huge part of the magazine. Oh, absolutely. That's what used to be something that was what we would buy magazines like that for. I want to see what Spin has to say about XYZ. For the good and the bad. You could criticize something poorly and you're like, I'm glad somebody said this thing that I was thinking that nobody else was saying. And it's probably tough in your mind where it's become a lot more difficult to... avoid being looked at as somebody who would, you know, criticize somebody else and have it not come off like hate speech. Do you think that it is still possible for somebody like you to criticize other people without it? Oh, absolutely. I'm not intimidated. Okay. I couldn't care less what social media says. I'm not on it. I wouldn't know. I guess you'd know because people send it to you in an email. Yeah, yeah, that's, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Bob Lefsetz will tell you if it's happening. Yeah, Bob Lefsetz will definitely tell you. Yeah. I mean.

I mean, it's also that I think that we've shifted in a way where the problem is that, you know, if we're speaking about it, you know, when it comes to like the arts, you know, I think that there's basically fans of superstars feel like their job is to protect said superstar on social media. You know what I mean? So it's like if there if there's a Beyonce gets three or four stars somewhere. You're going to get doxxed if you're the pitchfork writer that gave her three or four stars because it's not perfect. And the fans, they think their job is to kind of defend. And it's, I mean, it goes back to this too, something we talk about on this show all the time, which I'm sure you have an opinion on, is the fact that there's not, the celebrity profile is dead. They won't. allow it they won't you know they'd rather send an essay in or have their friend interview them or whatever it is there's no kind of no one spending six days with Brad Pitt you know and really like getting the story and it's partly because it's partly because the celebrities are too smart now and like understand the value and know how to play the game but it's also the fact that the the the publications won't I don't think the publications will assign the story because they want the celebrities to like that. Yeah, that's a very big part of it. You're right. I'm seeing a lot of that in the business, a terrible amount of it, and I'm against it. It's worthless. Getting to know someone, I mean, I just remember it as a kid, like just, you know, pouring over stuff like that because you feel like you're actually learning something about someone that is bigger than life, you know, and that isn't possible anymore. Well, it isn't possible, and that's just great sadness. Because what we have is a bunch of avatars now, fake people. You know, and back in the day when we were doing spin, we would send a writer for a week to be hanging out with a musician or a group or an actor. And it would, you know, really get fantastic detail. And it made the person being interviewed and profiled so much more interesting because they were real. That's the thing. It's human. That's what I understand, because to me, as the reader, it's humanizing. Absolutely. Which makes someone more relatable, which to me makes them more likable in most cases. Flaws and all. Mm-hmm. Flaws and all. Totally, totally do it, Greg. You know, we sent a couple of writers to do a cover story on R.E.M. at one point. We had done the first cover story with them, so they were very fond of us. This is years later when they are one of the biggest bands in the world.

And this is before, again, so my writer, Jim Greer, was in the office, Michael Stipe's office in Athens, Georgia, and he was alone in the office. I don't know why he was. And so he was going through Michael Stipe's Rolodex and writing down all the Rockstar's numbers. And the publicist walked in to the office, saw this, and said to him with disgust, When is Spin going to send real writers? You have to take advantage of your situation. I mean, he would be... Well, now I'm starting to see the celebrity side of things in this argument with stories like that. We may have single-handedly turned that corner, yeah. It's kind of interesting that restaurant critics, 80s, 90s, whatever, they all had to remain anonymous, and now every restaurant critic is a public person that we all know. And maybe music critics... have to go anonymous nowadays in order to do some real honest work without fearing for their family's safety, you know? You know, look at the lists, some of the other travel publications put out of best hotels in the world. I've been to some of those places, and they wouldn't make another top 100. And then you find out, oh, they buy ads. Yeah, it's all about ads. It's all about ads. Well, now most of the travel press, and I hate to say this, it sounds terrible, but it's true, and it's pretty much just universally acknowledged. What you see in a travel magazine or on a travel site has been paid for. Very simple. Whether it's directly paid for or in some sort of, you know, we're an advertiser, we're going to do this, etc. Absolutely. I have writers who work for the other guys, and one guy said to me once, he pitched a story about doing West Hollywood, the Gacy. i'm here right i'm here right now bob actually so just let me know if you need oh excellent excellent good good i could i could take care of the gay scene in west hollywood no problem you've got boots on the ground let's say that i got boots on the special kind of boots they're louboutin boots but they're boots on the ground well they count they count they count and uh he said that he got a call an hour later from an advertiser a marketer who said oh great i hear you're going to write about us he says well no i just pitched the story about doing the whole west hollywood scene well no we just bought an ad so you're going to be writing it

That's how it's gone. That's how it's gone. We don't do it because, you know, what the hell? Does the world need another, you know, phony travel publication? No, it doesn't. It needs a publication that will actually tell you what's what. I just wonder even though with, because we live in this like recommendation culture, you know what I mean? And I think it's... There's a word of mouth kind of thing that didn't exist, I feel like, at one point, where this is all people want to talk about. Everybody thinks that they're an expert and wants to tell their friends about their favorite restaurants, their favorite hotels, everything. And I think the authoritative voice is kind of lost. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I like my friends, of course. happy to hear what they have to say but i feel like there should be a higher power that we're looking to because it's like i don't give a shit what jason thinks about you know x hotel like if he liked it that doesn't mean i'm gonna like it i think that's absolutely true and that was always the value of the media yeah and that value is gone to a great degree it's replaced by the polishing of the surface you know everything is now not everything but most things are phony What do you read and like? Besides, of course, Graydon Carter's airmail. I'm sure you're a subscriber. Oh, no. I've known Graydon since he was a spy. Spy and Spin were actually next door to each other on 8th Street. And I've always liked Graydon. I was very close to Tom Phillips, their other partner. We were friendly those days. And I've known Graydon up until, say, ran into the street a couple of years ago. And I like and respect Graydon greatly. I didn't like what Vanity Fair became. It became to me the ultimate glossy phony. And airmail is not phony, but it's not phony. But it's glossy. It's still too glossy. It's a little too precious for me. I like grit. That must be nice. I don't like grit. That's because I haven't been rich yet. No, I still like the gloss. That's the problem. No, I like a bit of grit in my teeth. Me too. My face in the dirt.

I like grit, and that's the romantic side of me that likes to see the real topography of humanity. But what are you buying and reading and paying for? No, great question. Atlantic. Okay. I think it's fantastic. The New Yorker. I'm half and half on that. Sometimes it's a bit wonky. Sometimes it's good. Well, that's anything that – Anything that's good is going to be sometimes wonky. Yeah, I mean, I think that it's like – like I just read that – Willie Nelson story in the New York times magazine this weekend. It was, it was so interesting and I almost didn't read it. And I'm like, because sometimes I, yeah, it's just like, I don't, I don't know why sometimes I decide to actually do it versus like, I think I already know what this is. Does that make sense? Like I know about, I know about this person, but, but, but the New York times it's like, okay, maybe they're going to do something deeper and it's going to go further. I hope that because of who they are. And at the best they do. At their worst, they're very woke. And that gets to be annoying. That gets to be annoying frankly. That's the way I feel about the New York Times. I did subscribe. I gave it up. Somebody actually, as I canceled it, I canceled on the phone. Like an old person. That is, I wasn't going to say anything, but yeah, you're right. And the woman said, well, why are you canceling? And sounding like an even older person, I said, it's just too woke. She goes, oh, thank you very much. And you know she wrote down an old person. Yeah, no, 100%. No future here anyway. Can't be alive that much longer. But, you know, the New York Times I read, of course, The Guardian, I can't stand their wokeness and their politics and their stridency, but I read it for the soccer coverage because I'm a soccer fan. For professional reasons, I stay on top of what everybody in the travel media is doing. Sure. And I read a bit of everything. I read CNN a lot. The BBC is very good. BBC Online is excellent. It's a lot easier and a lot harder doing it online because there's not really a filter. But I think the greatest dilapidation of media has been its gutlessness. It rarely has the backbone to stand up to its advertisers or to big business, and that's a terrible shame. And now we had a conversation recently at Spin where I consult with some of my record reviews, and one of the editors literally said,

Well, I worry about our writers getting doxxed. See, I'm telling you, this is real shit. I said, this is not the way to look at things. I mean, I don't know. I don't know if they have a choice, unfortunately. You have a choice. You have a choice. You have a choice to have balls. Stand up to it. You know, I mean, I stood up to the farmer industry with our AIDS column and spin for 10 years. And they did all kinds of dirty tricks. You serve our business, but we continually pound it on. Well, I think the problem is, I think the problem might be, you know, some writer getting paid $500 to review Beyonce is like, is it worth it? Do I want my parents' address on Reddit so I can shit on a fake disco song? I don't know if it's worth it. And that's what they want you to think, Chris. That is what, no, I mean, look, I understand. I take the opposite position all the time. I'm a known Frank Ocean skeptic, which gets me in a lot of hot water. Not with me, but okay. But I just, you know, I just, I think that there is like a, I think that maybe if I was being paid a lot of money to risk that, then it's, the decision becomes different. And maybe that's not how it should be, but I think that is, I think that like, yeah, is it like worth making fun of Machine Gun Kelly on stereogum.com to have my... Could my tires slash? Like, I don't know if it's worth it. Yeah, no. Well, the answer is it's not. But the answer is, does that have to be the inevitable outcome? And I think, really, publications have to stand up for their writers more. Yeah, I agree with that. Publications have to take the heat and say, hey, you know, that's it. I mean, we always did. I mean, I gave a speech recently. It was sort of a general, like, talk about how I used to get death threats and how I miss it. And it's half kidding. Obviously, I don't want to have death threats. But I miss the fact that we were once important enough for people to want to kill me. Sure, sure. That's what it was all about. I didn't want to die, but I kind of liked the attention. Now, what kind of – these death threats were related to, like, review kind of things? No, exposés. Beyonce has never – I know. So you're saying, like, more political leaning. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, our AIDS column. We broke the story that live aid was a complete –

fuck up, and the money went to buy weapons and not food. And there were people who wanted to kill me. No serious death threats came from the Ku Klux Klan. We did the very first story about the Zan child murders that said it wasn't Wayne Williams, it was the Ku Klux Klan. And these guys called me up at home and said, we're going to kill you. I said, you're not stupid enough. I said, you're too stupid. You're smart enough to find me. If I give you my address, you won't find me. But I was young. I was young. That was not a smart thing to say. I don't recommend that. I didn't teach that in my journalism. I would hope not. Tell the Ku Klux Klan. They're not smart enough to find it. It sounds so much, I mean, like you were saying before, you know, the romance and the mystery is sort of gone nowadays. Yeah. The mystery of, like, will I die today by the Ku Klux Klan. It has a certain mystique, yeah. It gets the blood pumping. Yeah. You know, it's funny because I look back on that and they romanticize it. At the time, it wasn't. threatening. I kind of don't know why it wasn't threatened. I guess it was just too young and stupid. But we were just caught up in the passion of what we were doing meaning something. It meant something. You know, we knew not every record review meant something. We knew not every cover story meant something. We knew that we did a story on Atlanta child murders that exposed, frankly, the white authorities in law enforcement in Georgia determined they didn't want to pin it on white people. because they were afraid of a race war. So they hindered on a black guy who was just a scumbag, was a child pornographer, Wayne Williams, who was actually never charged with a single land of child murder. People don't realize that. Never charged with one. It was presumed that he had to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, sometimes the court of public opinion is more real than the court itself. And more so today. But here we have somebody, you know, the ex-president who regularly violated the laws and the norms. society and we couldn't you know we kept up with it as entertainment you know it was entertaining to read what a buffoon he is but we weren't indignant enough I mean he got impeached twice the amazing thing is why was it only twice you know I mean did it really take that long to do it you could have knocked a couple more out and he would have survived them all so we have lost our indignity you know we're no longer as indignant as we should be

No, I agree. I just wonder what, yeah, I mean, it's what can hold our attention is really what the competition is about in some ways, I think. But even if it's something like sexy and celebrity-driven or it's something kind of dark and political, I think everybody gets 48 hours max, basically, to keep us engaged, and then there's something else that's just better. There was more interest in the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp trial. than there were in either of the Trump impeachments or the January 6th committee. Which, by the way, the only way they made that interesting, sorry, the only way they actually got anybody to pay attention to was they hired real TV producers to produce it as a special. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, for sure. And that actually got to pay attention. It's a race to the bottom. Yeah. What do you guys think is going to change? What do you think will change that? Or is it ever going to change? I think it's like a lot of people... went so hard during covid i think being so engaged in all of that stuff because there was nothing else to do that it exhausted them and they're a little bit checked out now which is i think better honestly and i think but i think this whole thing of like there's a lot of pride now that goes with like i don't care like i don't watch any of this shit because it's bad for my mental health or whatever it may be, you know? And I think that can't last for, I think that's a phase we're in. I think people will go back to wanting to be engaged in things that aren't necessarily fun or exciting just because we go in waves. This is how it goes. When I said we've lost our indignity, lost our ability to be indignant, I meant in the real world that really matters, you know, how Trump treated the presidency. Why isn't the entire nation? coming together as one to reject him, instead of the entire nation being split in two halves because of him. That's the indignity we've lost, but somehow we've manufactured like weeds as new indignity that nobody can criticize anybody. And that's just an intellectual laziness that's stunning, utterly stunning. What do you think the cause for it is? The cause for it? Or lack of indignance, I should say. Well, lack of indignation of things that really matter. That's laziness and a little bit of cowardice.

And the substitution of this sort of faux indignity every time somebody makes a remark. I mean, I give you examples. I can't even think of this. There's so many, you know, people having to apologize in public because they said something. Oh, clearly I made a mistake. You didn't make a mistake. Don't you thought there's actually rationale behind it, you know? If you extended out what you thought and explained what you were thinking, it isn't racist or misogynist. That's the problem, Bob. It's just not worth it, man. It's just not worth it. I guess that must be something I just completely don't get. Depending on where your money comes from, it's not worth it. You know what I mean? If the public at large is your source of income and you need to keep them happy and engaged in what you're doing and making, it's not worth it. dying on a hill that you probably don't care about to begin with that much. Do you want to die on your feet or right on your knees, Chris? You've got to make a decision. No, I mean, I think it's all, I mean, I see both sides in some ways where it's like, yeah, is it worth it? Probably not. If my life is comfortable and I'm doing well and I can apologize for something and it'll go away, it's probably better to do that than to write some six-page explanation on why I said something because people don't actually care why I said it. It's so true. That's not what people actually care about. That's not the point. I think what happened with social media is it made every person that wanted to think they were incredibly important think they were incredibly important. institutional sized narcissism. So you've been to Chris's Tumblr before. Don't talk about me in my own podcast. I didn't want to say anything. I too did my own research. I don't mean posting photographs on Instagram is narcissism, although there's a little bit of that there to a certain point. But this notion that on Twitter you're going to be more indignant than the last guy who posted 30 seconds earlier. I did an interview with Robert Kennedy Jr.

who I don't agree with on most of what he has to say, but I definitely think he's a smart guy and thoughtful guy. And so I thought, wait, we're going to hear his side of this old anti-vaxx thing. He denies he's an anti-vaxxer, but I don't think that's very plausible. He denies he's anti-vaxxer. He is an anti-vaxxer. Yes, exactly. O.J. denied being a murderer, too. Yeah, exactly. You know, he's not really a very good candidate for us believing that. But the point is, He had very interesting things to say. And so we published this interview, which I spent personally two weeks fact-checking. I mean, it's much more than I would normally spend or something. But I did, because I thought it was really, really important to publish this opposing view to the orthodoxy. We took a lot of heat. The first day it goes up, there's people screaming at me in social media, which the editor of Spin, where I published this piece, sent me some examples of it. So the next day I wrote a response. That was it. Never heard again. Nothing. Because my response just categorically said, you're wrong. You're wrong. Every single line in this piece has been proven to be correct. You may not like it. You may not agree with it. You may think it's a fringe element of the whole story. And I said, I'm personally vaccinated, boosted, and absolutely pro-vaccine, without a doubt. But I want to hear why people aren't. Well, that was the end of it. Never got another social media dox or whatever you call it. Again, never got nobody. It was it. Once someone just stood up and said, hey, you know what? You're wrong. We had BJ Novak on the podcast. He's a friend of ours, and he went on Bill Maher, and he basically said that we have to, like, trust the audience. You know what I mean? These people, we have to let them decide. Have a little more faith in the intelligence of our audience. You can't coddle them. Real life isn't on Twitter. Real life are people that are buying tickets and going to the theater. We have to give them some credit. We're not giving people enough credit. Exactly. I totally agree with that point.

And look at Ma himself. Look at how brave he is, the stances he takes. You know, he just gets up there and says what he wants. I mean, if I'm getting paid, you know, $50 million, I'll say whatever the fuck I feel like, too. Yeah. See, I would do it for nothing. If I'm stoned and getting paid $50 million, I bet I'll say anything, too. Oh, that's genius. That's very funny. I'm going to tell him you said that. No, you're right. You're right. It is different if you're getting paid $50 million. You say what you want. But on the other hand, he was always like that. And he wasn't always getting paid $50 million. No, of course. I mean, that's why you get paid $50 million. It's because you get to the point where that's long enough. And he is really smart about it. And he undoes some of these things with such thoughtfulness. So I think there's room for it. I think there should be more of it. And you're right. Your Novak guy was right. We don't give the audience enough credit. We don't, you know. Bob, thank you for joining us today on How Long Gone. It was a pleasure. Oh, definitely a pleasure, too, for me. Yeah, thank you for joining us. And people can check out this. Wanderlust is the website? Yeah, it's Wanderlust. We'll know. Okay, we'll know. It's Wanderlusttravel.com. Got it. We're the only travel site with a sense of humor, I'll say that. Yeah, travel sites do tend to be serious, so there's probably room in the market for this. There's definitely room, yeah. We're standing alone in a big hall. All right. Well, thank you for joining us. Thanks so much, guys. I hope I get to meet you guys. We'll see you soon, Bob. Yeah, for sure. We'll be around. Talk to you soon. Thank you.