664. - John Niven

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? We're back from vacation. You can all stop slitting your wrists. The salve you need is back in your podcast application. jason you're finally back from your journey uh throughout many different countries how bad do you feel physically right now uh not i don't feel terribly terrible first of all hey guys what's up how are you um good i i have like a pounding in my head i have like a head congestion like i'm not sick i don't feel bad at all but i feel like okay my brain and head area is like full of stuff that needs to be scraped out my head my My head area. Yeah, my head area. My head area. You know how sometimes on Instagram stories you'll see girls getting sculpting massages in their stomach area? Yeah, you want that. I need one of those for my cranium. Honestly, there's probably a business there. There's probably something there. No, that's a real thing that exists. A head massage? I know a head massage exists. I don't know if there's a lymphatic brainage. But I mean a specific one for what I'm talking about. Ooh, brainage. Well, I mean, I think mostly I'll have to... Yeah, I need to drain the main brain. Brainage, bro. But there's a lot of people out there listening who are actively using Ozempic right now. And then, you know, the baby fat in their face that keeps them from looking vultuous. You know, you need to keep that fat kind of alive and pumping in there.

I can just get one of those Olympic facial sculpting massages, and it'll probably help drain my brain. Yeah, that's a good idea. Okay, we'll look into that. But I'm glad you're back. I am in London, and I can't wait to be back either. It's been an action-packed trip filled with mostly rain. So it's kind of pushed me to the edge, if I'm being honest. And luckily yesterday it broke, but there was five days straight of... kind of all day pissing which you know puts puts chris in a little bit of a mood yeah because you like to walk about see the city see the city lights and and luckily we were able to walk about with our trusty umbrellas and still get soaked um which is the british way but i went to kevin morby open for the national like the day we got here and it was i was like amped to go i've never seen a national i love them and then i was like oh, I'm going to take a train for an hour and stand outside in the rain for two hours. This isn't really kind of what I was looking to do, but I've managed to make it through. So you did do it. Yeah, I've actually been extremely active. We went to Wimbledon. I saw The Killers at the O2. I'm going to see George launch his label tonight, if I can stay up late enough. So it's been an action-packed trip. I miss Georgie. The Killers at O2 is one of the best things I've ever seen. And I don't want to bore you with it, but it was like... No, no, no. I'd like to... Well, you know, it's... viral and hot and trending right now because of the whole they played mr brightside when what do they call it over there it's coming home it's coming home well they will they yeah so shod and liam went the night before and they're like holy shit they open with mr brightside i wonder if they'll do that for you and then they did so i think they're doing that every night which is extremely cool i had a follow-up question when they open with mr brightside do they play it again at the end or no only no no no

they open with it and i i've never i it's probably the loudest i've ever heard a concert or like an arena like the amount of because it was sold out oh two and everybody knows every word to that song you know um so it was like fred again levels yeah exactly it was like fred again but good it was crazy but they but like even if you don't like them which i understand people think they're corny or whatever but like there's just nobody kind of putting on a show like that at that level where it's like Brandon Flowers is saying some corny, like, pre-rehearsed shit, but it's just so dialed, and the songs are so good, and they sound so good that it's kind of undeniable. Do you have an example of something corny that he would say? I mean, you know, he gives these, like... you know like in between songs kind of like you know about his mom died you know just just shit that i know he's like written down it's not you know what i mean he says the same thing every night right right right which is what you do at that level i'm not faulting anyone for that but it just it's so it's he's so earnest and so like utah mormon american that it's like it's it's just almost endearing because how else could he be Kind of. You know what I mean? Like how else could he behave? So even though it's clearly scripted and rehearsed and there's a whole formula and program that he's following, it's done so well that you admire it where it's like, and they're going to get out of this crazy old town and this one's called... Yeah. and then it just goes perfect he oscillates between like morrissey and bruce springsteen you know what i'm saying and kind of his and kind of his like vocal like his accent and stuff but yeah it was great and it was it was surprisingly easy to get to the o2 on the tube it was like not that bad of a it wasn't that big of a slog which was nice and surprising because we talked about this because in la going to any arena is a fucking nightmare nightmare Yeah, parking's only $140. Yeah, we got parking. And then you got to pay another $20 for the crackhead to guard your car. Well, you got to pay, yeah. I mean, I never broke $100 for parking. I was trying to, but I think I could get there one day. You'll be there, mate. Pray for me. It's coming home. It's coming home. Yeah, so, yeah, I was in, where did I go? We were all over America. Thanks to everyone who came to all of our shows. They were all very fun. Well.

It's not weird. They're almost all very fun. Some are more fun than others, but that's the nature of touring. There's always going to be some better than others. But we're happy to say that the new cities were the best, I would say, and hopefully we can keep that excitement going when we come back. Nothing like some new pussy, you know what I mean? Yeah, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Washington, D.C., those were new cities added to our roster, and both of them were very great, very nice people, very good vibes. It was nice talking to everyone and meeting everyone. But, yeah, our schedule was a little intense, and I was definitely pooped, but we made it, bro. We made it. I'm so happy. Yeah, I was in Spain eating my way through Spain like a fat bastard for the last few days, and I'm definitely home enjoying water and black coffee. and uh things like that sure i i like carolyn was like whenever we go out of town we're we're always like oh i just want to have like a bowl of white rice type shit yeah yeah yeah of course like just some just give me some plain food that does not oh you're speaking my language a reservation p-l-a-i-n just just for those listening at home yeah yeah p-l-a-i-n um just and i was i was craving like uh like carrot sticks just like a like a really nice carrot stick no no dipper necessary no salsa verde no hummus so you're going you're going you're going mr ed mode let me crunch let me crunch yeah so i i went to the market i picked up some local carrots and i plan to skin them and dice them into some chompables today. And I'll just be kind of nipping at those throughout the afternoon as I fire up my laptop to have this podcast. Not chompables. Not chompables. I'd like to order from your chompables menu, please. Do you guys have a chompables section or is it just what I see here? Yeah, actually, speaking of chompables, it reminds me of that nice photo of RFK chomping on a barbecue dog.

That's not going to help the campaign. Actually, I like it. Or it might. I think it could. I think that it's going so bad for everyone else that maybe eating a grilled dog Francis Malman style is not the worst thing that could happen. Malman style? Dude, RFK's got bread. Malman could have prepared that. He could be just out of frame. We don't know. He's like, look, Francis is a friend. Here you go. We get them out to the house. Speaking of gowns. Yeah, but I think that. What he does with the, he'll get the summer squash and he'll hang those over the coals. And then just a, you know, not a full grown, but maybe two and a half year old Australian sheep hound. Just kind of a little light paprika. and just kind of kiss it under the coals for a while do you think that's a dry rub or do you think that's he'll do he'll do a dry rub on the on the alaskan sheep hounds there can be a little i mean i don't need to tell you but yeah you'll do a dry rub at first and then of course as it's kind of coming around the you know the ninth hole then he'll start basting it with uh you know sauces okay okay that's good to know We weren't there, but it's nice to have an expert that can kind of put us there. Honestly, that picture is pretty insane. And it kind of came and went because George Clooney is telling us that Joe Biden needs to not run. It's like when news gets this crazy, you just see stuff and it goes so fast. And you're like, that's kind of insane. This guy that's running for president who's Kennedy was like. eating a dog, a barbecued dog, and no one except the Daily Mail talked about it that much. It's not really that crazy. I mean, obviously, eating a dog is not super... It's frowned upon here in America. I guess it's frowned upon, but it really is not that big of a deal, I suppose. We have a lot of dogs. I love my dog. I'm not going to eat it, but you know.

comes down to it well i don't i mean if maybe if you did if you were on pcp you look like a carrot stick no one's safe over at that household but yeah i mean i agree i yeah but i i think that the yeah the the new cycle is getting i mean but remember when when like trump's son you know killed like the the endangered species that was like a story for weeks because there was less there was like less going on this is arguably worse than that or at least equal to that i would say yeah and then rfk's like i didn't kill this dog i'm just Having it for my fourth course. I found the dog. It's found. It's fine. It's fine. It's totally fine. I didn't do anything wrong. Yeah, I killed it and I've been dry aging it in my house for the last three weeks. Yeah, like I have time to do that. I bought the dog dead. You guys can fucking chill. Oh, I love news. Yeah, I've been doing a lot of food, tourism and traveling around Barcelona or Barcelona and San Sebastian where A bunch of 16-year-olds from Orange County and London will come to eat pizza and smash burgers. I'm seeing a lot. I'm seeing that Barcelona, the locals are protesting tourism because it's gotten so out of hand. Yeah. Once again, Jason Stewart's part of the problem. Once again, on the front lines. Well, they're not talking about me, right, guys? Of course not. I'm a traveler, not a tourist. I'm a traveler, right? I just showed up in this backpack. I can speak Espanol. I just showed up in this backpack. This is my culture. Yeah, there's a lot of that going on. Luckily, I was in transit on those days where they were... I mean, they weren't really doing that much. I think if you... You can kind of see, much like a wildlife film, where you see the herd. And you see a couple that are standing out and you're like, oh, these are clearly the gazelle that the tigers are going to capture. Like, it's not that hard to tell. And the same thing when I'm walking around, you know, I have some kind of darker features, you know, European nose and eyes. So when they see the guy, I love your generosity to yourself. But go ahead, please. What do you mean? I'm not saying like I'm super hot. I'm just saying I have like.

I have, like, dark eyes and a big nose. Some people like that. Some people don't. But I'm not, like, the guy who's wearing, like, the Tulane polo shirt. That's true. Yeah, you're not wearing your Auburn Tigers Under Armour shorts with your Skechers and white socks. I'm not wearing my brandy cardigan and saying, Hola! What's good here? Those are the people that are getting sprayed with a super soaker full of... Y'all just smash the tomatoes into the bread and that's the whole dish? Okay. I mean, I guess I'll try it. This squid is so good. And then they just like, then they quietly put it in a napkin and then spit it into their purse kind of thing. Oh, that's good. Yeah, it was good. I feel like, I mean, I was reading your GQ newsletter, which I feel like did a very good job. It was some good growth and maturity for your hating writing where you're offering a solution. to a problem instead of complaining about it so good good job i really like that well done thank you thank you everyone should go give that a read but i think uh it made me realize that yes when during the summertime peak traveling months there's a lot of great places you could you could stand in the place where you live and go to many great places that are a three-hour drive a two-hour flight and they don't require passport control and you don't have to go through customs lines and you don't have to you know a zillion other things and then when it's time to do your international travel you're going in october march you know just i'll go to barcelona when it's not the peak and then that'll be fine because otherwise it's impossible to enjoy it's impossible to enjoy because you're just so surrounded by stuff. Like, we went to the beach in San Sebastian, a beautiful city with a beautiful beach. It's like a rich surf community, food and wine and eating, and it's right up my alley, but you're sitting on the beach, and there's just, you know, 28,000 people on the beach with you, and you're just crammed in like sardines. The sardines are better over there, of course, but you're still crammed in them. There's God, you know, there's...

pickpockets everywhere and police are all over the place and you see some titties but is it worth it i don't know i mean that's that's isn't that life's biggest question mostly yes jesus christ uh well look it's it's good to be back and uh i left the door open it's good to be back and i'm still talking on the pod we're just doing our intro so it's good it's good to be back i've i've london i'm hitting my limit So it's coming to an end, which is nice. It's coming home. I mean, I also want to shout out to a friend of the show, Gabe and Missy, for setting us up at Rita's Theater. I put together a big group dinner of all the people that were in town, and I felt like a real puppeteer because Katie Waxhachie was here doing a BBC session. Eben is here. shooting a marvel movie and i i'm happy to put them together you know what i mean it felt like a meeting of the minds you're you're a real hans oberst the way you'd be curating right the way i'd be curating bro you gotta stay with me that was a nice that was a nice collection of people and and also yeah i miss you guys over at rita's i miss those little mini martinis it was delicious no shod shod and liam came it was a good it was a good crew it was a good crew um but yeah How long gone? We're back in the saddle. Don't worry. Your best friend is here, and we have a great podcast today with John, who has written several books and screenplays and films, etc., etc., and he's a real good-time podcast guest. Yeah, he's also just a very good chatter, good sense of humor. He's done a lot. He's seen a lot. Him and his friend seem to sort of be you and I just 10 years older in so many ways, except we don't have many books that have been written under our names. country homes and things like that but that's what the 10 years is for i gotta start writing books now i think it's more than i think it's more than 10 years to give us some time i don't want to age john uh but i'm i'm gonna guess it's it's more like 15 okay um but yeah he's got his books are great well everyone in it pick yeah go for it he's got some legendary stories from the music business and and the kind of the the heyday of the 90s um which is you know right down my street uh but let's um let's give john and also and and we have uh and

We'll be potting in a couple of days and then we'll do a full catch up of Chris and I. Yeah. Just to make sure, you know, of our, of our, of our travels and tales and whining and complaining. Lots. And then also, also London, August 9th, uh, Bush hall tickets are on sale. Now we'll, we'll post about Instagram, but get those tickets. We're, we're lining up a guest as we speak. And then. We'll also see you at Newport Folk Festival, baby, with our boy, MJ Linderman, and also a big special guest that we cannot announce. A Colorado resident who is doing MSG in the near future is going to join us as well. So it's going to be a real murderer's row up there in Rhode Island. Yeah, and the Newport Folk, I think, is sold out, but then the show that we're doing is on that Thursday night. And are the tickets available now? Yeah, tickets are available for our show. It's a night show. You can buy the tickets separately. Newport Folk Festival is one of those festivals that sells out before the lineup is announced because it's a cultural moment. Kind of like the way teenagers go to Coachella without knowing if Billie Eilish is playing or not. Also, just quickly before we go, if you guys haven't seen Billie Eilish on Chicken Shop Day in her outfit. Please, please go look at it. It's one of the most unbelievable things I've ever seen. Yeah, she dresses like Daywon Song now. She looks like a very meticulous street skater. FTP, FTP Osiris t-shirt with the bandana under the fitted is just, I mean, it really is Daywon Song. All right. Her nolly hard, inward varial hard flip. is fucking gnarly bro she's she i thought she was alien workshop but i guess she switched it up um how long gone thank you guys for listening and uh we'll talk to you uh later this week talk to you on monday this episode of how long gone is brought to you by a new podcast from the guardian stateside with kai and carter this is covering a lot of our bases jason it's a it's trying to slow down

The news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what's happening in the world. And I know you particularly have quite a lot of questions. A lot of questions. But how often? Because we do this podcast three times a week and that's a sweet spot. How many times do they do? Three times a week. And I have a feeling just based on the platform and these talking points that they're maybe going to be covering different stuff than we do. That's just a guess. The Guardian is not some billionaire owned. They're not afraid to say what they want to say, brother. Yeah, Rupert ain't sniffing around in what journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman are up to over there at Stateside. But yeah, listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch it on YouTube. It's three times a week. And who couldn't use more news? You know, especially when it's not, you know, from here, let's say. Give it a listen. Give it a listen. All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Quince. Jason, the temps are warming up. It's getting hot out there. Summer always changes how I get dressed. I need pieces that feel lighter, more breathable, and they're just easy but still put together. I don't want to look like a slob. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high-quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Breathable linen and soft organic cottons. Well-made basics but without the luxury markups. That rare balance where everything feels elevated. but still effortless. Yeah, Chris, linen season is here. I wore a linen blazer to dinner a few nights ago in the warm California sun. But, you know, you got that Italy trip coming up this summer and quality European linen pants and shirts. Upgrade that look starting at just $34. You know, if you get a nice linen suit, a little t-shirt underneath it, some chill shoes, you're looking good, but you're staying cool. The inside of your special areas are nice and dry as you turn up with your besties. So elevate that summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash how long for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns, even on a nice holiday now available in Canada.

That is Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash how long. That'll get you free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince punto com slash how long. My wife insists that I am at a force field that fucks up all technology. Have the Russian government hired you yet, Sean? Sadly not. I could use that extra income stream, buddy. I'm there for them. I'm here for you, brothers. russia if you're listening john thank you for joining us this is our first podcast back from a little uh holiday so it's very exciting because because you and i are in the same time zone jason's in beautiful los angeles where he belongs oh he's still in london yeah oh yeah i'm here baby i was here for the big win last night i watched it from my hotel room He watched it alone? Yeah, look, I don't drink, so there's not much, you know, like, what am I going to do at the pub? He also doesn't know a single player on the team, and neither do I, to be fair. Yeah, that's right. Well, we all find ourselves parking our cars in the same garage there, my friends. I know nothing about food. I don't do team sports. I don't get it. Putting your fate in the hands of 11 other mutants? Why the fuck would you do it? Technically, I get. Golf, I get. You know, those are real sports. You only trust yourself. Exactly so. Also, I'm Scottish, so, you know, technically I should hate England and want them to lose, but I can't do it. I've lived down in London in the southeast for like 30 years now. My wife's English, and also I'm the least patriotic person. You know, the whole William... the shit doesn't work for me. So I kind of, you know, I'll root for England, but I don't really give a fuck. You don't really give a fuck. But people... People really do. People down here are starting to lose. Oh, they're losing their minds now, dude. They're losing their minds, you know? It's funny because every British person I talk to is like, it's been great, but they're going to get their ass kicked by Spain. It's going to be so ugly on Sunday. And I'm like, you guys really are born pessimists. Oh, yeah. It is not...

It's not the American go team. No, the numbers don't lie. The numbers don't lie over there. Spain, we're a bulletproof team. I don't really know what you guys are going to do over there. But quick question. You said you're not a footballer. In your Twitter bio, it says shameful dad, which I understand that. It makes sense to all of us. But then the second line, Strathcarnage FC. And FC usually means football club. Yeah. Could I get an explanation on that one, please? Clear it up, John. Whenever you get some racist maniac coming at you on Twitter in the UK, in their bio it always says, Crowd Dad, and then the name of some fucking football club. Every time. Crowd Dad, Mobile FC. So I got Shameful Dad and Strapped Carnage that completely made up football team. I had a feeling I wasn't familiar with Strapped Carnage's Offensive line. But I like it when you're a dad that's pro-dad. It's been a rough season for Strathcarnage. Yeah, condolences to the lot of them. I was reading today that... When England loses, cases of domestic violence go up by 40%. Oh, yeah. It's crazy, you know? Which is really a crazy figure. I didn't know you guys still did that over there. I don't know if you know that photograph. It's almost like a meme in the UK of an England fan bent over in the street with his trousers, and he's got a flare up his anus, which is exploding. That's basically the whole fucking country at this point. The entire country, the anus lift. So he's bent over and he's got a, we'll call it a Roman candle shooting out of his ass. It's not going into his ass. His ass is just a tripod where the... It's shooting out of, just to be clear. A launching mechanism. A launching mechanism. It's an audio-based podcast. I just wanted to be sure. He's painting that picture with Walt. What kind of garden are we working with over there? I feel like I see some gardens. It's a beautiful day here, which we haven't seen many. You can see some of it up there. You can see some of that. You have a beautiful garden. It's a big garden. I don't do anything to it. We have the man, Brian, the gardener, comes and does his thing.

We've got the builders. We've got what you guys call it, construction workers with some wall collapses. But I'm not good with my wife, Charlotte, God bless her. You look at these guys, and they come and they do work, and they'll come up and try and talk to you about the work they'll do. They'll go, we just got a full 14 tons of rough cast into that, and then we'll try part of this, the Druco hammer. And I'm like, what the fuck? Why are you talking to me? What's going on here? Yeah. I'm paying you to not hear this stuff. But, you know, when they're telling that to me, I pretend like I know exactly every word they're saying. Like, oh, you're going to do a 14-gauge rebar on that one? Yeah, yeah. Did you see Strathcarnage the other night? Fucking what I get. Fucking hell. The weather we're getting. I can't even fake it within two seconds of that speech. I just go let rainbow pinwheel. eyes you know kind of frozen macintosh yeah yeah no i i understand i don't pretend i i in fact i avoid them i leave town if anything like that is going on so i don't have to possibly encounter that if it weren't for the fucking kids i'd do the same thing and because you because you we all we all three here kind of look like regular fellas you know what i mean but i i don't know anything about anything manly, really, which is a problem and a gift, I would say. I could come across as a horny-handed son of a soil, but inside it's basically John Waters, you know? Yeah, yeah. What's happening here? Wow, Waters on the inside. The level of everyday sexism that still exists, because these guys will always seek me out. And as soon as I go, you have to talk to Charlotte. You can fucking see their minds explode. The guy doesn't want to talk about pouring the rebar. I have to talk to his fucking wife. She actually loves this shit. She will listen to you and give you a detailed response. I'm already gone. I checked out five minutes ago. I checked out before you started, my friend. When the truck hit the driveway, I turned off. Call me when it's time to pick out the curtain colors, you say, right?

If I increase your fee, can I stop fucking listening now? I don't know if you guys, you're old enough to remember traveling the country before GPS. A little bit, yes. Yeah, a little bit. We're in our early 40s. Traveling the city, not traveling the world. Even when I first started going to LA regularly, which is about 15, 20 years ago, you were still in the land of maps and shit. When I was in a band and you're going from town to town, back in my late teens, early 20s, you have to ask fucking directions. Yeah. And you ask three people, right, because one of them is going to be insane, one of them is going to be a tourist, and one of them might actually know where you have to go. But... As soon as something gets past the second direction, my major switch, you know. So you go left up there, then you take a right, and then you go right. Auto shut off. Memory capacity. You can go one step. I am also terrible at directions and can't even follow a map when it's digital. So when it's telling me exactly where to go, I have a tough time. You guys are fucking pussies, man. Come on. And also, speaking of the three, asking three, it's very good when you're getting a little construction bid, they always say get three quotes and pick the middle one. Oh, yeah. Just an aside for our fellow homeowner listeners going on right now. You can set through three of those conversations. Speaking of John Waters, that reminded me of a tweet that you faved recently that said homosexuality should be... compulsory for two years, like national service. And I thought that was a great idea. It's a great idea. Do you have a personal connection to that ideology in a way that you'd like to explain furthermore? Again, I can do no better than whatever enrages the sort of right-wing Brexiteers who come at you regularly. I'm down with that. Not so much to even agree with the other side and just like annoying these fucks on the floor. That's honestly, that would be a great idea. I would love to see some like young Republicans forced to kind of suck dick. It's like when they call back the K-pop stars and they have to go to war after they're already famous. You know, it's like that doesn't, that is so crazy. Or Elvis.

yeah yeah or elvis yeah they should combine the two you're in the army your hair's all shaved off you're in uniform and you're chugging a lot of cock for two years i mean the army you've never been in better shape yeah the army the army is very homoerotic the army is very homoerotic it does make sense i'm in the shape of my I'm in the ship in my life. You're away from your loved ones. Nobody really has to know. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Chris, you've done a little... I was thinking a little more surface level, but you've gone deeper. But I think... I like to think that the sentiment of that tweet sort of transcends simple cock-chugging and moves more into the... To quote Morrissey... It takes strength to be gentle and kind, to just have a sweet side to you that a lot of these people need, you know, cock chugging or not. I see you, Morrissey. We hear you. Embrace the sensitive side of your nature. I mean, any time I can... relate to some Morrissey, you know, is a good time for me. I know he's had a tough run of it, but thank you, Jason. It will ironically get you more pussy at the end of the day. And moving on, on this nice gay lane, I wanted to ask you about your experience in the 90s rave scene over there on that side of the pond, because it's something that I enjoy and I was not really a part of. The crazy days of early 90s rave? Yeah. Well, that was kind of when I kind of started in the music industry. My cousin had a shop selling dance singles in Glasgow. And then he decided, you look at these tiny little labels. And back then, you could put out a piece of vinyl and sell like 7,000 copies of some intended release. And you could do three or four of them a month. This was before there were suddenly more people making records than they were fucking buying them. It was like around the midnight. For a little window there. Good old days. That's kind of how I got started. But it was a heady time that would kill me now to even think about it, how we used to live. Also, what you just said, sorry to interrupt, we're living in a time now where more people are making records than buying them. And you said that as a joke, but it's also kind of true.

yeah and i never really thought about that or realized that it's it's never been easier right you know i pity the guys it's too easy it's too easy the guys who invested in life savings in opening recording studios around 1995-96 but nobody well okay quite an interesting story so when i started at london records which was a major record company was part polygram then it's been about 94. These American dudes come in to talk to us about how the internet was going to change our business in the future. This is like 1994. It's the days of dial-up. It would take you fucking 45 minutes to get your naked photo of Pamela Anderson or whatever the fuck they're down there. Worth it. I'm trying to jerk off here. It's fucking, what's going on? These guys come in and they're going, I'll jerk off tomorrow. You're going to be able, you know, kids are going to download the music from the internet and they'll do it, you know, they'll do it anywhere they like. They'll be in train stations, on a plane, you'll be, and we go, I went, where are the wilds going to go? There are going to be terminals everywhere and you can just plug in. And this guy's going, no, there won't be any wilds, something wireless. And we tell the kids, I go, this fucking guy's insane. And I said, so. get the music, and then it comes out of your computer on a CD, and you print the artwork off of your printer, and then the guy's going, no, no, no, there won't be any artwork, there won't be any CD, the kids, but what are you going to have, it'll just be on the computer, so how will you listen to it? Just through the computer, we're going crazy. So these guys were looking for 50,000 bucks, they were doing a sort of venture capital thing to fund some internet startups. We sent them out of our office with a fucking boot in the arse and abuse ringing in their ears. We later found out one of the companies they were often setting up was called Yahoo. Much later, over redundancy drinks, we figured out that if we'd taken that $50,000 and put it into Yahoo in 1994, rather than making the second menswear album,

you'd be sitting here right now guys talking to an empty screen because I'd be in the Caribbean water skiing behind a dolphin while whipping my fucking cocaine dwarf You know, yeah, that's I mean, that's kind of how I feel about like AI and stuff. When people talk to me about it, I just glaze over and I'm like, I don't care. This is fucking stupid. But I also know that there's it's impending whether I like it or not. But that's because I have the the Internet has proof of that kind of you were you were on the front lines. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm the same, Chris. Whenever you see those videos like Elon fucking Musk's pose of what's called Optimus Prime, the fucking giant robot, bounding around the factory. I just scroll past that quickly because I'm like, that dude's going to be smashing my front door in about 15 years and buggering me while robbing everything. I don't need to watch it on Twitter. I agree. It's my impending doom. I don't need to preview. Hopefully I'll be so old by the time that happens I can't even fight back. It'll just kill me pretty quickly. It's going to be more trouble. Get it over with. Yeah, get it over with. Efficiency. I feel like those stories, though, everyone should have some of those. You know, if I only did this, you know, then my life would have been different. It gives you some good. When I tell my son, my eldest son is now 28, and I tell him that story, and he looks at me like, you fucking retard. During the greatest financial gold rush of a generation, I was in the corner with a fucking duncey sat on, chewing a piece of straw, trying to catch a cup in a bowl. You have a 28-year-old son? Yeah, yeah. Jesus. I was young. Thank you, Chris. I was just surprised. I thought you were going to go with 18, and then you hit me with the 28. I was just surprised. No, no. He's my retirement plan. So he's working the last few years for MC Satchey. He does kind of – Jerry Maguire is my best reference point for what he does. He hooks sports teams and stuff up with brands. But he's just been – I can say this because it's definitely happening. He's just going to work for Formula One.

no he's gonna have to f1 to be like brand that's where all that's where all the money is baby so dudes if you're into that shit we can hit some heavy vip packages up if you want to eat some lobster and drink champagne i could be into that the idea of hitting the paddock i can see that yeah yeah i i just don't i've watched the tv show and i liked it for a little while but then it was like this is the same thing every time these nerds get in their heads and they lose and they they want to fire them but they can't you know it's just the same story over and over for eight seasons yeah but going going sounds fun it's it's about like what's the golf one that was fun at first and it's just the same uh the full swing oh yeah yeah full swing but the big point of entry the full swing where you do get addicted is all the fucking wife the wives are all fucking well it wags on crack you know And I love seeing that every house looks like a fucking branch of the whole house. For sure. Yeah, it's Dean Street Townhouse. Dean Street in Florida. Dean Street Townhouse rebuilt in the Florida Key. Rebuilt in Jupiter. But it's cool because they all live in the same place. And what I didn't realize is how out of shape and also drunk and rich they are. They're just on private planes drinking Miller Lights. And that's cool. Unfortunately, that's cool. Like, to still be considered a professional athlete and live like that, you've figured out something. The hardcore punk rock guy, you would like to decry it, but you're thinking, yeah, I want to be on the golf stream, raking myself fun. Do you play golf? Because you brought it up a couple of times. Are you nasty on the links? I'm not as good. I'm getting old. You lose the power as you start to get into a little older. When your kid starts out driving you, that's like getting a telegram from the mortuary. So, you know, you're done. We're going to be seeing you soon, buddy. Okay, so you're saying you've lost power. So you've been playing for a long time. So at one point you were scratch level and now you're blaming your aging. Okay, okay. No, never quite scratched. Down to around single, almost single figure player at one point. But the thing is, in Scotland, everyone plays golf.

It's not, it's not, it's not, in most countries it's like an upper middle class sport. In Scotland there's really cheap public courses everywhere. And like, you know, my school, everyone played golf. It wasn't like an elitist thing, you know. Like my dad, we were a working class family, but my dad played golf, you know, everybody played golf. you know especially i try to be crazy in la because i haven't managed to get a good country club hookup ever because like no execs who i work with are people my age group play golf they look at you you're crazy uh so you wind up the part the first time i played up in a griffith park at wilson or harding in la i i mean six fucking hours, you get partnered up with these 95, you know, Korean dudes, who, you know, I'm lining up a putt in the first green, and this guy's telephone starts ringing in his bag, and I look at him and say, what the fuck, this is, you know, you get your head smashed in in Scotland, and he runs over, I think to turn the phone off, he takes the call, and starts having a screaming match in Korean with some other, and I'm trying to putt here, I don't fucking believe it, and so, A younger American guy, I went, what the fuck is this? And he went, dude, that's how they roll here, you know, it's like a, it's that, it's really old Korean guys, or it's the bros, a couple of bros who are out blazing six pack of beers and the thing, you know, I was playing once and these guys are really playing slowly in front and I could smell the reefer just fucking wafting back. And finally, I went up to complain. And these guys, they both look like really, can you imagine two really unsuccessful versions of Benny Bunko? Okay. They're both, you know, in the pleasure wear. And they're fucking blazing weeds. And this guy goes to me, hey, I swear to God, I'm not making this up. He goes to me, hey, how you doing? I'm Mercedes, and up in the cart there's my boy Plush. That's the most LA shit of all time. Really, I know that's true. I know that's true. In the crack, there's my boy Plush. I'm like, what the fuck is happening here? Will you fucking get a move on? At that point, you can't even be mad. You're just like, what plan am I on? No, no, no. I'll just bank this anecdote for life. I cannot stay mad. It's worth it. It's worth it.

If you need a connection to Trump to play his course in L.A., there's plenty of people we know who could kind of set you up over there. Yeah, I was just going to say. I mean, that's not a joke is the problem. Oh, this is huge for me personally. This episode of How I'm Gone is brought to you by TaskRabbit. Oh, baby, let me tell you something. This is not a joke. I use TaskRabbit a lot. Because I can't do anything. You need some art hung? TaskRabbit. You need a fucking 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. And I mean, how it works, TaskRabbit connects you with skilled taskers in your area. They can help you move. They can assemble furniture. repairs, yard work, mounting, and more. You can search for a Tasker based on cost, skill set, availability, and past client reviews so you know exactly who's showing up and can have confidence that they know what they're doing because Taskers have assembled over 3.4 million pieces of furniture, completed 700,000 home repairs, handled 1.5 million moves, and the numbers are just going up, Jason. Yeah, throw a little money at the problem. It's not so expensive, and that job that you really don't want to do is something that another person out in the world, is very good at doing and would gladly do it in exchange for a little bit of money. So when life happens, your to-do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get $15 off your first task at TaskRabbit.com or grab the TaskRabbit app using promo code. how long taskers book up faster, especially for same-day tasks. So book trusted home help today. That is $15 off your first task using promo code howlong with the TaskRabbit app or at TaskRabbit.com. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Squarespace. Obviously, Jason, you and I spend a lot of time on the World Wide Web, sort of our peers, our listeners, our friends, our colleagues, maybe even your parents if they're freaky. And if you're doing anything in the world,

writing, taking pictures. I do topless boxing. You need a website. Exactly. A website that works, that does what it's supposed to do, that allows you to be creative, but also business-minded. Jason, there's one place to go for that, Squarespace. Yeah, Chris, I'm over here. I'm modifying calculators and putting Claude inside of them so you could cheat at school. And I just want a place where I could have everything all in one place. I can have the SEO tools. So those future graduates can find me and, you know, I'm able to accept, quote, unquote, donations for my services that might be gray area. You know what I mean? And then email campaigns. Hey, I got a new, you know, 2.3 version upgrade. Boom, boom, boom. Get the analytics going. Raise some money. You know, 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. Trump, and only Trump bought, we've got a place in Ireland, we're going to summer, and my Trump bought the course right next to it, so I can't play there anymore. And he bought another course in Scotland, really close to where I've got. My mom lives in Scotland. I can't play there anymore. He owns a shitload of golf courses, right? Like, that's, like, actually something. Okay, okay. I knew there was a few. The ones in Scotland lose an incredible amount of money. The last time a friend of mine, he went in and, you know, they're serving, like, the $40 mac and cheese for lunch. There's, like, two people in the dining room that would sit 800. I'm like, yeah, somebody's losing money here. Yeah, no, 100%. Yeah, they're lost leaders. Promarily the Russian government. You go to Ireland in the summer. What happens in the summer? Well, we're in County Clare. It's actually my ex-wife's family place. But it's right on the ocean, about as far southwest of Ireland as you can go. Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. You still have access to this, but it's your ex-wife's family?

Yeah, yeah. She lives like a mile up the road. We all get on good. Everybody's good. Wow, that's very modern of you. Never marry someone you wouldn't be equally divorced from, Chris. He's got to keep that retirement plan good too, you know. But I agree with you on that. I agree with you on that. Yeah, that's good advice. That's good advice. Exactly so. So no, you have to get lucky. The thing is, we've got two small kids, and they're both with their mom very pale skin, like fucking milk bottles. So come August, we can't really go much further south than the south. Even the south of France gets crazy hot now in August. So you get lucky in Ireland. It's fantastic. The beaches of God. You get the odd rainy day where you're locked inside and it's like a fucking episode of Father Ted. It's getting a bit crazy. When the weather's good, it's good. It seems beautiful. I've never been to the country, but it looks amazing. Down there, it's gorgeous. And also, when you get little kids taking those, I mean, we take the kids to L.A. once or twice a year, and that fucking flight with two little kids, you know, that's a lot to take. Yeah, that's a lot for adults. Yeah. Anywhere you could just pack them in the fucking people car and say, here's a video, shut the fuck up, and we'll let you out when we get there, you know. Sure. So you like L.A., that's cool. Oh, no, I like it. My wife loves it. We had a situation for a while with my buddy, Tommy Vercola, Norwegian director, who did like Dead Snow and Hansel and Gretel, witch owners. He still spent a lot of time in Oslo and their lovely house and sort of Beachway Canyon up behind the Gelsons in Franklin. Sure, sure. When he was back here, we'd take his house and sort of things. So we'd go for three or four months at a stretch, you know? Wow, that Gelson's is basically a character on this fucking podcast, to be honest with you. Oh, my God, I love it. It's come up quite a lot. Jason famously saw Tom York from Radiohead there, which is a great, you know, real fish-out-of-water situation. That's a good spot, buddy. The only downside to it is you're actually cheaper to eat out. You know, you get in there, you think, I'm just...

I'll just fill the fridge. That'll be $850. What the fuck are you talking about? Look, it's pricey and it's normal. It's the only supermarket that I go to window shop. I just feel nice in there. I hope to one day buy my cereal and Windex there, but usually I just sample from the poke bar. The only thing in LA, I really have to moderate the Scottish accent. i i you know you you i go into my sort of stupid transatlantic twang because you just i just get bored with not being understood yeah whereas i've got some scotish parlour ervan welsh my buddy forever when he said ervan doesn't moderate his scottish accent one iota so you'll stand next to my brother two pints of lager another couple of whiskey I'm sorry, sir. I just, I don't, I can't keep going with it and not be understood. John, I was in Gelsons. John, I was concerned today that we might have a hard time understanding you, but luckily it's fine. This was a concern of mine. Because I speak this kind of horrible transatlantic jockey where I sort of, you know, mangle there. If I was speaking pure where I come from, yeah, we'd have a much either, we'd have a sometimes. Okay. But I was in that Gelsons once and we're having a dinner party and I needed to buy Stark cubes to make soup. to make a, you know, a side speech. And I said, in pure Scottish, I said to the girl, can you tell me where the Stalk Cubs are? And she went, sorry? The Stalk Cubs? And she goes, sir, we don't carry that item. And I went, the Stalk Cubs? And she went, oh, the Stalk Cubs are right over here. To me, it doesn't sound that different. But, you know, just that fucking vowel sound. Yeah, it does. But also, nobody in L.A. buys stock cubes, so it's not a popular item. If you said the coconut water, then she would know exactly what you were talking about. Dude, I was making five liters of sip. I'm not shilling out for the goop fucking bone broth, you know, fucking $18 for 500 mil. Not an insult. Not an insult. Some of us do it from scratch. Some of us don't. It's not a big deal. You've got the beast bones in there at 7 a.m. getting the demi-glass with you.

oh wow okay so well you you know your food you've done some food writing as well yeah or do you still do a bit of that did we have 12 people coming for dinner tonight i'm you know about to as soon as i get off this podcast i gotta get in that kitchen and wreck myself what's on the menu this evening then yeah what's the what's the menu here's the thing it's the school parents you know so it's like The best world is fucking civilians. And we've got some dietary requirements. There's gluten-free and there's no red meat and all this bullshit. So they're getting fucking chicken. I'm going to do roasted chickens, herbed up, lemon, what have you. They can have that. And shall we do some salads and we'll do whatever. Oh, I made a huge pot of salsa verde. There's nothing that salsa verde won't elevate, right? I agree. I've never heard that before. I've never heard that. Jesus nodding. Chris looks like I'm speaking Scottish. I like that. I like salsa verde. I just didn't know it was a fix-all. Can you put it on steak? To be clear, Chris's version of salsa verde is probably something that he would dip tortilla chips into. at a Mexican restaurant, and I think you're talking about the salsa verde that's more like an herbal pesto kind of vibe. Yes. It would work beautifully on any piece of protein. Yeah, I'll have it on fish, steak, chicken, whatever. Thank you, Jason, because that's exactly what I was confused about, and I'm glad we cleared that up. And, John, we're using a mortar and pestle for that salsa verde, I'm assuming? Because I wasn't up at 4 a.m. to do that. I used the food processor. Okay, okay. So you're a cheater. If that's cheating, yeah, mag we up. I love it in the podcast when you guys get into food because Chris is so like my friend Alan and he has very rigid and also seemingly arbitrary rules about food. There's certain things you will not eat, certain entire food genres you disapprove of. I love those. I mean, I'll obviously eat anything. Look, I love the rich culture and history of India, but their food just doesn't do it for me. I don't know what to tell you. Again, my friend Alan, he went, I'm sorry, that's fucking dog food. It's spicy dog food. No matter what it was, what type, I don't care if we're going to Jim Cat, Mayfair, or we're going to whatever, it's dog food. Is your friend Alan, is his phobia...

Scent-based as well, like Chris's? Or his aversion? He doesn't like sloppy, overly liquid foods. He doesn't like sort of mush foods. Yeah, he doesn't. This is great. This is great. He's got a new kitchen in recently and I'm around there and I'm going, where's your extractor fan? And he goes, I'm not good. Why the fuck do I need that? What do I do? He ups some soup now and again and we'll go to a restaurant like a civilized person. Damn, Alan's got it figured out. I hope he's rich and good looking. He does okay, but you should have him on. He's got some very strong views. You guys can go an hour on food. We love strong views. We love strong views. But I think it's important to have friends like us because I'm also very open to learning. You know what I mean? I still want to know what he's talking about, even if it's not something I'm going to personally participate in. He'll take a bite. Yeah, I'll try it, especially if you make it. Then it's a different story. But you guys have to eat out together a lot, I guess, right? Especially when you're traveling with the show. We do. Yeah, that's kind of the only reason we do it, to be honest. It's because we get to go. We just got done, and we had some pretty good meals, Jason, I would say. We basically just travel around the world, stay at the Four Seasons, and do Caesar salad sampling, and don't turn a profit. All of our revenue gets dumped back into Caesar salads and shrimp cocktails. It's research. My favorite part of the meal, whenever Chris and I go out to eat, we sit down, you know. martini vodka extra cold you know don't even open the menu and then when chris says just water for me and then the look on the server's face then i'll know how the rest of the meal is gonna go and that's usually my favorite part there's nothing there's nothing i love more than saying tap water at restaurants like i am bottled water at restaurants is one of the most expensive scams that has been hoist upon us hoisted upon us and we we've been we deal with it it's like i'm not paying twelve dollars for a bottle of fiji i drink too much water like it's going to cost me a hundred dollars like i can't do that bring me the tap yeah you can't you can't cheat a cheater yeah exactly i thought taps also quite chic isn't it but you know it's like you know people are saying i don't need that i don't need your

Fancy bottled water to look good. You know, Gwyneth's not already in the bottled water. Gwyneth's going to tap. John, you get me. I'm a salt of the earth guy. I'll drink water out of the fountain. It's no big deal. You know what I mean? It's nothing for me. I think Gwyneth's tap is a little different. It's activated. Her tap is a $15,000 filter. The goop filter. Yeah. It runs through some type of crystal clitoris that was harvested from a different planet, but it does come out of a tub. A seahorse's hymen. What exactly? Yeah, it trickles through a seahorse's hymen. It changes the pH level slightly, and the results speak for themselves. I was just in San Sebastian, and we checked into the hotel. Oh, that's some good eating. It is some good eating. I'm still recovering. We'll get into that shortly. You know, when the bellhop brings your luggage up to the room, you know, a little sort of insisting on the tip. And like, oh, please let me show you how to use your hotel room, you know. Light switches and, you know, you can shit in the toilet and windows you can see outside, you know. And he was like, and just to let you know. And he goes to the bathroom and turns the sink on. He's like, you could drink the tap water from here. And we were like, okay, thank you. And did you? No, because they give you free water. They have bottles of water for free. why but i guess it's different because like in mexico or something like that you'll get a little montezuma's revenge but i'm a little bit i'm a little bit i'm not i'm not saying i'm gonna go drink the water out of the tap in mexico but there's a little bit of i think a stigma attached to stuff like that where i'd probably be just fine nine times out of ten is my is my guess right right it's my guess don't let it get into your eyes but yeah you'll be fine nine times out of ten a friend of mine wants to be really bad and poison from drinking tap water in Paris, because I think they were really drunk, and they made the mistake of using the hot tap, but it was, you know, lukewarm. In Paris, it all comes from these tanks and the roof that are inevitably filled with dead pigeons and whatever the fuck, you know. Paris is a disgusting, disgusting place. I'd rather drink the tap water in Mexico than in Paris. Is there a more expensive hotel city now than Paris? It's fucking crazy, you know?

You can get a suite in Rome somewhere for what you're looking at, a bog standard toilet in Paris, like $800. I literally just wrote, I just wrote about this today about how, how it's like at a certain point I'm staying local, baby. Like, let's just like, I could, you know, like, I just don't know if Paris, like going to Paris for a week, it costs, yeah, it'll cost you $10,000 if you got a family. Oh God. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm not a bargain hunter, I wouldn't say, but there's a level of chicken to piss that I'm like, go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself. We'll go to Rome or whatever. Yeah, on principle. So, go ahead, Chris. Well, no, I just wanted to hear about what is so good about San Sebastian, food-wise. San Sebastian? I would say... They prioritize food and eating there. They build their life like Stevie Nicks song. They build their life around food. Yeah, they're lazy. We know. It's a different kind of lazy. They're like Italians, but worse. Standing all day over the paella pot instead of working? In so many ways, yes. But there's something about how nobody there is obese, but they eat like... fried potatoes for breakfast and and you know like you're just eating you're drinking a cup of olive oil before noon every day but i'm about to google obese spaniards and each search you know i guarantee you know i'll dig you up some of these spaniards they're they're over there i know they've got a lot of fatties over there but they kind of look good you know they're they're not yeah they're not wheelchair bound but they're they're they could be thinner but for as much eating as they do I would say that the bods look okay. Yeah, I mean, look, no one's fatter than America. We do it like nobody else, so there's no comparison there. We've perfected it. We've perfected it. But I'm a real eater with a capital E, and I was driven to submission when I was in San Sebastian because it's just, there's not much to do. You go to the beach and it's full of...

10,000 punters. Scotland could give your Midwest a run for its money, my friend. We've got a lot of fucking giant beasts that I'm bringing around up there. That's true. My wife loves to eat really clean. About a year ago, I mean, what I want in my bones, my blood, my genes, because I'm a Scottish animal, as I crave pies and pastry and baked goods and potato. I crave that shit. I can't have it because, you know, the max my weight ever got to, I got to about 230, 225, 230. I mean, for my height, I should sit about 170, 180. I know I love your podcast, it's been Christmas. So there's a guy there and he's about 15, 20 over. From 60 yards, he's 15, 20 over. 10 to 12 over. So yeah, I generally sit, I'm a 10 to 15 over guy. But I have to really work at it. I have to, you know, my wife pleases me. If I hadn't met Charlotte, dudes, I would be like fucking a deuce and a half. I'd be sitting there. You'd be talking about a 250-pound madman who's eating chips out of the sack. Your work is sedentary. You know what I mean? You've got to sit down all day, and that unfortunately leads to snacking. There's a lot of that. This is the life of a gourmand. You have to find peace with it. For years, I thought gourmand was just the same as saying gourmet. Oh, it's not. Grimond is basically a greedy, fat bastard. It's a very polite way to say a rich person has gout, is what I think of it as. And I have gout. I have had an attack in a while, but I'm getting this twinge just yesterday in my left toe, which is a sign of a little attack. And people think it's fucking Lewis. They think, you know, you have a hand with an eight. Lewis got gout. It's fucking agony. I cannot describe. It's like somebody sticks a butcher knife in the joint of your big toe. Okay, so gout affects...

the feet mainly is what you're telling me. I don't know much about gout except it's a rich man's disease. Historically, that was the case. I think now today when we look at the phenomenon. It's a stereotype, Chris. I'm sorry. We've just been talking about the copulent poor, the modern phenomenon. Rich people aren't fat now. You don't get fat rich people. What the fuck do you ever meet a fat rich person? The only poor people are fat. Yeah, you're right. I started suffering from this in my mid-30s, I guess. and thankfully because i eat a lot better now than i did sort of 15 20 years ago it's not so bad it's quite rare and certain foods activate it um But I'm not going to not eat shellfish. I'm not going to not eat liver because, you know, I might get an attack of gout, you know. Yeah, sure. I'm not going to not eat liver at the end of the day, which is a bummer because it seems like liver is a healthy thing for you. No, it's purine. It's purine rich. But it's Chris's reaction to immediately double up in the stomach. That's how everyone reacts. Oh, memory, the eighth I am. We just think it's all jolly. Oh, he's got gout. That's so adorable. I don't wish gout. I don't wish gout on my enemies. Now that I understand better what gout is, I won't gout shame. Chris, I would think of it as like a kidney stone. Okay. Not to use a pun for other awful meat, but like my wife, her brother and her dad are both very healthy, in-shape people. They go swimming and surfing. They're not fat at all. And they both... You know, if they eat a little too much shellfish or a little too much pork or shellfish and pork together, it's a damn shame they pair so well together, don't they? A little bit of wine or whiskey at the end and the gout comes across. And I love pork. Pork would be your desert island meat, right? If you had to have one fucking meat on a desert island forever, it would be pork. Really? I didn't know pork was... Is it because it can be prepared so many different ways? Or is it just good? Because you think about it, it's three meats in one. You've got the crackly.

Then you've got the snowy fat. Then you've got the actual meat. It's three hits. They don't have beef bacon, Chris, you fucking idiot. I apologize for my ignorance. It's like not to the people who order fillet steak. It's the most boring thing in the fucking world. My friend Alan does it just to drive me crazy. He'll ask for a medium fillet steak in a restaurant. He doesn't even fucking like it. He just knows it enrages me that he's not having a rare ribeye or a rare t-bone. I like Alan. I like Alan more. Alan's funny. Alan's having a good time with your ass. And he's willing to piss away. Also, this is the most expensive cut you can buy. He's willing to do that just for the joke. Inevitably, I'm picking up the check here. So yeah, he's winning everywhere. He's pinging me for an expensive thing that he doesn't even fucking like and that enrages me to witness. It's a triple win. You and Alan need to start a podcast called How Long Gone... Part do, because it seems like your dynamic is quite aligned with ours. I will often stunt order when Chris is paying. What does Alan do for a living? He's a writer now. Well, we both used to work in the music industry together. He was creative director at Warner Brothers for many years, and now he's a crime writer. Wow, really? So we're both from Scotland and, you know, similar age. But you'd find him amusing. He is. But we get into it. If you follow both of us on Twitter, sometimes I'll be cooking something, I'll post some pics, and he invariably responds, that looks like cold sick. What's wrong with that? And we get into it. Real-time reviews. Writing crime seems like a very timely thing to do. I feel like crime is more popular than ever, but maybe it's just with podcasts. Crime is up. Oh, time is up? No, no, crime is up. I thought you were cutting me off. Time is up. Shut up. We're done. Goodbye. No, I often wish I could do it because I write non-genre, non-literary fiction, and that's a tough space, right? Yes. Crime is like, I wrote one book that was kind of a thriller.

And you get this thing called public lending rate, which you get paid a few pennies every time someone borrows your book from a library. And on that one book, I earn more through that than any of the other books. Because people just go into the library and say, what crime have you got for me? What new crime, what new thriller do you have? So the guys do amass a catalogue of that stuff. And also it sells internationally. It sells everywhere. And there's a whole circuit for it of festivals and panels. It's got its own whole subculture. So it's an, you know, if I could rewind 20 years ago. It's like, sounds like a certain type of porn or anime or something. You just walk in, what do you got? I'll take it. Yeah. Or heavy metal, you know? It's a genre. I like that shit. Give me whatever you have in that space. Now, you've done a lot of, you've done some Hollywood stuff. What has been your experience with that? I like. Yeah, I mean, I do a fair bit of, I do, you know, the rewriting and script doctrine, as we call it. A little punch up. A little punch up. The dialogue punch up is the sweetest of gigs. That's, you know, a couple of nice ones of them recently. You can never talk about it just because, like, you don't get credit and you don't want to take credit for, you know, just maybe. You just want to get the money. You just want to get the money. I want to get paid and hit the bricks. That's exactly it. But it's fun. I mean. It's art by committee, which has its frustrations. And I'm just finishing a long project just now that's kind of been, yeah, complicated, but fun. There's always a lot of notes. You know, you go off and write a novel, you get to play God, you do what you like, and, you know, an editor, an editor might discuss, as Nabokov said, an editor will discuss a comma with you as though it were a point of art, which it often is. Whereas in Hollywood, it's like, ah, fuck, I hate this fucking character, I hate this whole subplug, get rid of you, lose that, change that, it's like, you know, you've got to have a pretty thick skin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Writing a novel is a bit lonely. As Stephen King said, writing a novel is like crossing the Atlantic in a bathtub. It's a long sort of lonely haul, you know? Whereas working in a movie, you meet the producer, you meet the director, you meet the actors. It's kind of like being a cop. You go to the cop shop and eat donuts with other cops, you know, rather than sitting in your private eye office, figuring it all out on your own. So do you...

Do you go somewhere, or are you at work at home? I'm in the place of my work now. Now, again, if we're on a deadline or something, we've got a house in Scotland that I'll go to and sort of do some work there. Sure. Stare at the ocean. Well, we've got two little kids running around here, and, you know, even though I'm in my own room and it's all closed off, you can hear sometimes it reaches a certain pitch of intensity. So you're like, okay, I've got to go and fucking get involved in that. So, yeah. Before the pandemic, I'd say I'd come to LA three or four times a year, but now everyone's so used to doing everything over Zoom. I'll come once or twice because we love going, because we love being there. We're close to moving at one point. We couldn't quite pull the trigger on it. We were there for four months. I was doing a dialogue punch-up, and we got our kid into that. Our daughter, Alexandra, was maybe three at the time. We got into preschool down. It's right near the 101 coffee shop, you know, down there, just off Franklin. Yeah. And then they had a gun drill. What? She doesn't know what a fucking gun is. She's British. That's true. That's true. She's known for stabbing, but no guns. A knife drill, I'll do. Yeah. Yeah, she's small. She can run, you know. She doesn't run a knife. She doesn't run a bullet. What we like to do is we go down, you know, before we dropped off, we'd go and park at the 101, have a cup of coffee and an omelette, whatever, and then we'd walk the little stroller across and go down through the underpass. And then over the course of the summer, the underpass gradually became a gigantic bum encampment to the point where you couldn't walk down either sidewalk. Yeah, I lived right there. I lived in Beachwood during that time, and I never walked there once, and that's brave of you, and I'm glad that you attempted it. I know. I am a Scottish socialist liberal guy, and I was thinking, there's people going to be somewhere, but I can't actually walk. I can't get to where I need to go because we've got to do something here. It's bad. It's all blocked off. It's not going to get better either.

I thought you were going to say you lived in the actual bum encampment, Chris. I thought it was just back in the oxy days. No, luckily, no matter how many oxys I did, I still never learned how to pitch a tent. So I'm safe from that, kind of. I'm safe from that. My own inherent John Watersness saved me from him. Yes, it really did. I could check it. I could check into a hotel. Yeah, I would not fare very well on the streets. I think Jason can attest to that. I've seen him drag a mattress. It ain't pretty. Jason, you're like 6'10". You'd be okay in the street. No, he's going to fuck with you, surely. No, he's weak, though. I'm a target. I'm a target because I don't necessarily look like a scrapper on the streets. and you can see me from 10 kilometers away. I'm just saying, hey, come rob me, please. With little guys, you can do the thing where you put your hand on top of their head and they start swinging, but with the stronger guys, it doesn't work as well. They're all on crack and whatever. It's not a fair fight. Crack is known for giving superhuman strength. That's true. Take a bite out of the kneecap. It's not good. They really do some fucking damage. I saw down there one morning a guy getting out of a tent, and we're driving by, and he had on, like, chinos and a white shirt. I mean, he looked like he was getting ready to march through fucking Charlottesville, let alone be a bum. He's getting out of this white tent, and he's got a computer bag with his shoulder, and I said to my wife, I went, did you see that? Did I imagine that? She went, no. So I had a meeting that day at my manager's office down in Century City, and I said, I saw this fucking guy getting out of 10. I swear to God, this guy was not a bum. He might have been fucking full MAGA, but he was not a bum. And he goes, oh yeah, he goes, this happens. He goes, people who come here and they want to work in the industry and they're maybe doing an internship where they're getting paid 20, 30, he goes, they can't, you know, you can live in LA on 20,000 bucks if you have no rent to pay. So he goes, he said, the sleeping cars, the sleeping, they'll tend to up for maybe six months to see if they can.

They can crack it and get promoted. Hollywood ain't that good. I ain't sleeping on the street to get somebody's mail at William Morris. To go and get shouted at all day with some fucking lunatic sort of junior, you know, fucking agent. Wow, that's actually wild. I mean, I'm not surprised, though. The thirst is real. I thought for a second there could be a good sitcom in this. It's basically like Friends, but everyone's living on the fucking streets or sleeping in cars. Modern. But in L.A., he'll come out of the tent with his... Shirt tucked in his laptop bag. No home, but he'll still buy a $[redacted address] to the bus station. That's what's wrong with us fucking generation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're so close. I'm sorry, but I think so. I think somebody stole the sprouted almonds out of my tent. If somebody could fess up now, we could make this a lot easier. Yeah, I mean, if times go tough, I'll be living out of my infrared sauna. Knock on wood. Touch wood that doesn't happen. Actually, I wanted to talk to you. We're going to London in like a month. We have a show in London at the old Bush Hall. And whenever we even talk about going near. We get a lot of messages of saying, come to Dublin, come to Glasgow. Oh, you should do Glasgow. We get a lot of come to Glasgow. And if we ever do that, do you want to do a pod with us? Oh, lots of guys. I guess that up anytime. Give me a shout. Where do you guys like to eat in London? Where are you going to be? I'm here right now. And I'm, I mean, I'm going to. I'm going to the Devonshire tonight, which I've heard much tale about. But we went to Scott's, which I love. Are you connected to Devonshire? Are you VIP'd up there? Come on. Why would you ask me that? Of course I am. You think I'm going to go to a fucking pub, which I don't even want to go to unless I'm a VIP?

Thank you to my friend Ed. He's the VIP, but I'm Ed's guest. What's the difference of the two treatments if you don't have VIPs? If you're rocking up to the dev as a regular fucking civilian, you're drinking beer at a plastic glass 250 yards from the entrance to the pub. It's crazy. If you're getting through the little door behind the bar and into the VIP VIP, you're golden. You're getting a table inside. Yeah, we're eating. It's a group of us eating. So if we have to eat on the street 250 meters away from the door, I'm going to be concerned. You're good. You're good. Great steak, by the way. And they've got a good system. They do it. It's 10 pounds per 100 grams. So you can, you know, give you a little kitschy portion if you want. Or like me or Jason, you're probably going to get in for a full kilo. That depends how you want to roll. Yeah, I mean, I went to Scott's, which I really like. That's like a perfect Chris restaurant. And I'd actually never been there before. I love Scott's. The older I get, the more old school one gets in your restaurant taste. So, you know, the Dover Soul at Scott's is just fucking superb. Alex, my wife, we were sitting there and she was like, this is really a Chris restaurant. And I was like, what do you mean by that? And she was like, it's expensive. And you're the youngest person. Like, we're the youngest people in here. That's the only requirements. And the bread is good. Those are the three things that I need. You're the youngest non-Russian people here. That's true. I don't count the Russians. I don't count the Russians. I think I ate that for the time. You did. You did. It's like a seafood. Yeah, it's like a seafood. White tablecloth, little Mr. Chowy. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm going to River Cafe tomorrow. Oh, that's excellent also. That's excellent. A lot of good fish. Well, I can't eat pasta because the 250 pound thing, but that's, you know, you know, I got to avoid that. Maybe they'll have a kelp, kelp noodle supplement for you. You have the gluten free pass. Get the fuck out of here. Right now I'm in Chelsea and I really like it. And everybody's making fun of me like Sloan Square. I'm like, this is perfect for me. It's just like.

Rich people who don't work that have coffee. It's perfect. There's gyms. The older I get, get me Mayfair, get me Chelsea, get me... I've always been hanging in East London with all these fucking guys got a weight hanging off his cock and tattooed to fucking have left me up. I need that for. Fuck you, no. You're exactly right. What do I need that for? I'm a little younger than you, but I've reached that state already. So I'm glad. I'm happy to be here. You'll gladly trade that for some Saudi license plates on the Range Rover. Exactly. I'll take that, Rob. I'm wondering, does my server have a Prince Albert? I don't want to be. Honestly, the cars in this neighborhood, it really is staggering. It really is the craziest in the world. It's like unbelievable. The odd gold force, the odd sort of purple fluid. It's like a 19-year-old woman in a full burka in like a custom Bentley truck. It's wild how many cars there are. That's a strong look. Yeah, I agree. It's sick. It's very cool. It's very cool. I agree. I agree. And you know beneath the burka, head to foot and Asian provocateurs. Oh, no, I mean, they're leaving Harrods with bags all the way out the arms. You know, they're not messing around. They're here for a purpose. You just unlocked a new kick, John. Well done. Happy to be on the team, my friend. No, that's great. John, thank you for joining us on How Long Gone. There's a new book, correct? Oh, nobody cares about that shit. Paperback. Yeah, yeah. Paperback. Paperback. Oh, brother. Which is out. It's not out in America, I don't think, until next year, actually. So, you know. Okay. My American goes and hoes. We'll have to wait a while. Okay. No, I understand. I understand. We'll wait patiently. But, yeah, what date are you guys doing about the show? August 9th. Yeah, if you're in town. Sadly, I'm in the wilds of Ireland. Otherwise, I would have loved to have to come down, guys. But you should think about that. We'll see you next time. Think about hitting the provinces, guys. Glasgow is always a fun crowd. I believe it. No, I've never heard a bad thing. All right, sounds good. Thank you, John. We really appreciate it. It was a blast. Really good. My wife is so happy I was doing this. She's a huge fan.

Oh, I love that. We love to hear that. I had to kick her out of the house if she was going to come in on a short page. I love it. I love it. Well, next time you guys come to L.A., we'll do some dinner. Oh, I love that. Great. Good to see you, man. Thanks again. Great to meet you. Wonderful. Appreciate you. Okay, guys. We'll be in touch. Nice to meet you. Bye, guys. Bye. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com slash special offer.