042. - Gideon Yago

All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Stateside with Kai and Carter, a new podcast from The Guardian. And they are using this podcast to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions that we all have about what's happening in the world. And they do it three times a week. Jason, does that sound familiar to you? We don't really talk about, you know, a lot of international global news items and climates and cultures and sports and things like that. We do talk about fashion and wellness, but for everything else, Kai and Carter are a great place. All right, so who couldn't use more news? Listen wherever you get your podcast. or watch on YouTube. Want to make a podcast? Spotify's got a platform that lets you make one super easily, then distribute it everywhere, and even earn money. We like that. All in one place for totally free. It's called Spotify for Podcasters. And here's how it works. Spotify for podcasters lets you record and edit podcasts right from your cellular telephone or your computer. So no matter what your setup is like, you can start creating today. Then you can distribute your podcast to Spotify and everywhere else, those other places that podcasts are heard. Video podcasts are also available on Spotify. And when you want to take conversations with your fans to the next level, Q&As and polls are the best way to get them talking. With Spotify for podcasters, you can earn money in a variety of ways, including ads and... and podcast subscriptions. And best of all, it's totally free. Zero catch. We've been using it ever since we started How Long Gone. And ever since I discovered Spotify for Podcasters, I feel like having the option of turning off the Q&As and the polls on the user dashboard has really helped boost my creativity and take it to another level. I highly recommend giving it a try. Download the Spotify for Podcasters app or go to www.spotify.com slash podcasters to get started.

I just tried one of those Taika, the coffee they sent us. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bro, I am lit. This shit is fire. I forgot about those. I ran through all of them quickly. This shit is really good. I'm like super impressed. What flavor are you fucking with? I went for that raw. I hit the raw black, but I think that the extra shit in it is really making me fly. All of your... Adaptogens and maca powders and mushroom extracts. Exactly. And the Lion's Mane for clarity. I love this shit. Lion's Mane is needed right now. And it's a small can. You know what I'm saying? So I was a little bit like, oh, this shit ain't going to hit that hard. But it's, in fact, hitting very hard. And if there was more, it might be too hard. You haven't tried any of the other flavors, though? No, I'm not really a latte guy, but I'll try. Well, I say. If you think raw dog black coffee is good, wait until the macadamia nut latte hits. Okay. All right. All right. All right. It's quite delicious. Yeah. Shout out to those guys. Thanks for sending us. It's really good though. I love this shit. Can you spell the name just to give them a shout out? Yeah. T-A-I-K-A. Taika. Taika. I don't know the significance or the meaning of that word. Maybe it doesn't. come from anything. No, it could be a classic startup where they made up a word so they own the territory. Taika Waititi is the name of a filmmaker in New Zealand. Interesting. That is about all I can get. Love those Google search results. How's ATL going? Well, it's a big day, bro. It's fucking risky business here at the Black Household because my parents are out of town. Wow. So you're experiencing a feeling that you may have never felt for the rest of your life thanks to COVID and quarantining. It's true.

My parents and my sister and her husband and her new twins left for the beach. They went to South Carolina this morning. Big CB is holding down the fort. Let me tell you, I feel free as a bird. I also feel for you in this time because now you won't be able to celebrate Father's Day with your family. How are you taking that? Well, I never celebrate Father's family, so my dad is not the biggest holiday guy, but I'm going to get him a little gift so when he comes home, there's something for the man. Not a big holiday guy, so you're not going to be grilling up some T-bones in his honor? No, no, that's not really the vibe. I think he would probably just want to sit in his preferred chair and read a book and be left alone. which I would prefer to T-Bones as well. So I understand where he's coming from. Yeah, the butcher shop here in LA, McCall's in Los Feliz, lying around the corner into the parking lot. Dozens of people trying to buy expensive meat. For some high-end organic meat? The meat is hitting. It is delicious. I guess we hear all these rumors that we're moving towards a meat-free or more meat-free society, but I'm calling bullshit on that. I think we are hopefully, or at least I am, moving away from an unethically sourced meat society. Fair. As a person who hasn't eaten meat in a very long time, I actually don't know. The price difference between something at McCall's and something at Albertson's is staggering, right? I wouldn't say staggering. I would say it could be twice as much. But that's the difference between low-end and high-end. There is definitely a spectrum range of meat prices and quality that you can...

You can dip into where you get some good stuff that's ethically sourced and sustainable for just a couple, two, three dollars more per pound than hitting the supermarket terrible shit. I got duped today by fucking Whole Foods. Oh, go on. Well, you know they got rid of the 365 brand, but they... They just took 365 off the sign. So I walk into this bitch and I'm like, this looks like a 365. Yeah, I mean, I've said it many times. Amazon acquiring Whole Foods really ruined everything there. It's true. But I mean, unfortunately here, there's not really a good local option that has the same level of stuff. You're going to have to dig deeper into the small independent bodegas and markets of your ethnically diverse neighborhood there. Well, there is the DeKalb Farmer's Market, which is like a legendary farmer's market, but I don't really know what I would do there. No, I don't either. You would look at some nuts and then keep going. I mean, I would find a way to spend $100 because that's my culture, but I don't know. I don't know if that would be a positive or negative experience for me. But otherwise, you know, ATL is pretty good. I mean, they arrested the cops. Saw that. Which is, like, pretty big. And they did it, you know, not fast enough, but faster than we've seen. Except for the Breonna Taylor thing, which is insane still. And they gave the police charges that were not... Hitting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Felony murder is some real shit versus third degree or second degree. manslaughter or some bullshit. What's really interesting, though, is his partner has lawyered up and is going to be testifying against him, which is some really blue line crossing shit that we don't see very often. That is some blue line crossing shit. That is, he has now become the 6'9 of 12. Yes, exactly. Not to make it about numbers, but... Not to do the math. Numerical pun intended.

It's pretty interesting because I think obviously it has a lot to do with the climate. He's like, yo, I don't want anything to do with this shit. I didn't pull the trigger. I didn't do shit. I think this was reported. It's not like I got an inside source, but the cop who shot Richard kicked him after he killed him. Yeah, that's what I read as well, which is pretty damning. I think it's a combination of damning evidence. And the fact that we are in a society now where they really don't feel like they are confident in the fact that they will get off. I think not crossing the blue line and ratting out your fellow police happened for so long because you really felt that you could say nothing. be able to go on without punishment and people don't feel like they're able to do that anymore oh it's true it's it's pretty it's i mean to me that's that i mean obviously it's a very small thing but it's pretty positive i mean i think that like um you know right and wrong uh being chosen over like brotherhood is um a a good sign in general and and you know it only takes a couple to start a trend hopefully Much like bad street wear. Thanks for bringing it back to street wear. These little things need to happen and other people need to see that being a police officer does not make you invincible or above the law anymore and real consequences can happen. Hopefully that will slowly and eventually make police behave like actual human beings again or maybe not again but you know one can hope tj one can hope i mean you know hopefully look as long as we stop giving them money for tanks and three hundred thousand dollars worth of machine guns then i'm i'm gonna be happier so we gotta but we gotta start we gotta start somewhere um in positive news um uh the queen of how long gone podcast phoebe bridgers released her album early uh as to not compete

with the juneteenth holiday and you you pointed out something earlier to me that i thought was like pretty incredible and i don't know if people realize so if i would love for you to explain that yes she um she created like when when an artist will release a record they'll have a little link kind of like a a little link tree type of scenario where it'll show the album and the artwork and then all the different places that you can purchase or stream the record you know like Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, all that stuff. I'm sure everyone has seen that. But then she has replaced all of that with all different types of charitable organizations, Black Lives Matter, Youth Justice Coalition, women's shelters, anti-LAPD coalitions. And you're able to then – I don't know if you're forced to, but you are heavily encouraged. to where all the listen buttons have been replaced with donate buttons. And then once you've donated, then, you know, you can listen to the record. It's just so smart. Yeah, just a super simple thing and a smart way to, you know, signal boost and use your audience the right way. It's also nice in some ways, thinking about it further, is that like a young female artist having enough power. to get everybody on the team on board to make a decision like that is probably not something that would have been the case a couple years ago either. And as you were saying to me as well, the power has really been taken out of, not all the power, but a lot of power has been taken out of these major corporations and monopolies that run everything. record companies and movie studios and everything, a lot of their power is being taken away to where somebody could do something like this and the record company has no choice but to oblige in fear of negative press or PR, which is a great power move. What are you going to do? No, we don't care. We need to put this record out. Also, that 24 hours doesn't really make a difference in the scheme of things.

in a sales or stream like world. And the technology is here and people, you know, in these high places who run these record companies or, you know, concert promotion companies or whatever it is, they, you know, they know every day that their power is being taken away more as social media and technology grows that Phoebe Bridgers, you know, if she's intelligent and insightful and forward thinking enough to do something like this, She also does not need the help from these companies to release her album. She can print all of her merchandise from her friend who doesn't have full control. She can sell tickets to all of her shows by herself. No shots at our friends at Dead Ocean, secretly Canadian, just to be clear. That's family. Well, to that point, the record labels who have... set a good example for positive practices will then be celebrated even more and a light will be shined on them even more as maybe the only last true beacons of good in an industry that's been sucked dry of any soul. I've just had a great couple days musically for me because there's a new killer song that sounds like the fucking like war on drugs if they like really were in a stadium um which is kind of good i mean yeah it's fire it's got a heavy lead keyboard part you know i have not i have not listened to it yet i have not i mean i've been listening to music but i have not been able to listen to music that i have chosen i i can only listen to music that is just like a playlist or an NTS stream or something to where I don't have to think about the curation of it. I just have to hope. Jam. I just have to turn it on and go for it. I can't think about deciding what to listen to right now. Huh. I mean, I guess I get that except when it's, I mean, I think because something's new, I'm obviously excited to listen to it, but otherwise, yeah.

I think a lot of it has to do with DJ's fatigue of having to select music my whole life. It's just like, I'm ready to hang the boots up. DJ's lives matter. I agree. I think that... Thank you for that. It's probably because you've been bumping that J. Cole song 24 hours straight. That's the fatigue, is the J. Cole. That's another form of validation that I guess both of us have received of where has the anti-J. Cole movement been this whole time? Well, I mean, we're anti-J. Cole because he's corny and his music sucks. Now you have an actual reason to dislike him because he is talking poorly about a woman who is kind of beloved and doing it in an aggressive way and also fully owning it, being like, I stand by this shit. The cream is rising to the top, as they say, and the grounds. that need to be discarded at the bottom of the mug are being discarded. Thank you for bringing it back down to earth so our white fourth wave listeners can understand. I'm sorry for using an analogy that is so entrenched in color. The cream is a rich mahogany hazelnut cream, not a stark white caucasity cream. Okay, on that note, wow. Let's bring on our white guests. Jason works at Starbucks now. Our guest today is Gideon Yago, who if you're in our age or even maybe early 30s, you probably remember him as the face of MTV News during the Iraq War. And other massive events. He's interviewed presidents, political leaders, musicians, actors, obviously. He lives in L.A. now. He's a writer. I believe he's working on film and TV projects. But we're going to give him a buzz in Griffith Park and kind of get a former news professional's take on the world right now. I think it's an interesting perspective to have and kind of a rare one. All right. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Quince.

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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. Yo, what up? How are you, man? I'm good. How are you, Jason? You there? I'm here. Can you hear me? We're all here. Right on. How's Atlanta? Atlanta is really something. I mean, we were just talking before. They charged that cop for real and his partner's testifying against him, which is pretty crazy. So I feel like that calmed things down a little bit. But overall, it's actually been super nice. Weather's good. You know, can't complain. How was the trip down? Trip down was interesting. There were, you know, some places.

are just more concerned with the world than others in many ways. But it was good to see it. I think I'd been in Canada for too long. I'd gotten lost in the sauce. I needed to see the motherland in all of its glory. Fair enough. Fair enough. What have you been doing? Have you been in LA the whole time? Yeah, yeah. My wife and I had a baby boy Christmas day. So it has been... It was like we were just getting our feet underneath us about how to not kill him. And then the pandemic hit. And so then we were like parenting and quarantine. And it's, you know, they're a little tricky to move around. We've had a handful of parents on the show, but I think most of them have had children that are a little older where like schooling was the issue. I think that. That sounds incredibly challenging to both Jason and I. We could not wrap our head around that, but I think any sort of child rearing sounds difficult right now. Yeah, definitely. The analogy I kept making to people was I went through 40 years of life playing a video game on easy mode and being like, yeah, I kind of... got this let me see what it's like on like brutal murder slaughter suicide mode and that was having this kid in this like just everything was just impossibly hard um but you know then they like wake up and they start smiling at you and you start to have this interaction with this person and it's it's all the you know all those cliches made real right it's like the greatest thing in the world and um so you so you're gonna keep the thing Yeah, we're keeping him. We're keeping him. For a while, we were like, yeah, we've decided. After six months, he's earned his place in our household. It was touch and go for a while, but we made a decision. Yeah, a couple of crackless posts trying to get him off our hands. You didn't get any good offers, so you decided to keep him. People were real sketchy about quarantine breaks with taking in the baby, so we're keeping him.

You know, so you and I have been friends for a long time. We met in New York through like Sarah LeWitton and Gurge and like a kind of a Nightmare of You 2006 era, 2007 era. That's correct. But I think a lot of people that listen to the show would either recognize you from MTV News or the idea of that because they might be a little too young. Sure. I wanted to get into that, obviously, and just kind of what it's like to cover something so big, because I think you've been a part of that. But I also wanted to understand what you've been up to. Because just personally, I don't really know, so I would love to catch up and just kind of hear what you've been doing. Yeah. Yeah, about 10 years ago, I kind of decided I was going to just totally fucking take a left turn in terms of everything I was fucking doing. I kind of burned my ships behind me and headed out to the West coast and decided, you know, I want to seriously try to, you know, make film and make television. And, um, I sold a movie and I thought, okay, well this means obviously like within six months, I'm going to be like on a white horse and like, welcome to Hollywood, baby. Yeah. You know, uh, all the fucking dumb idiot cliches about you're like, Oh, of course. just because one good thing happened, this obviously means I'm on a trajectory. And, um, what it ended up being was kind of 10 years of like an apprenticeship from the ground floor on the way up of how to make film and television. Not all of it, the most glamorous in the world, but just working consistently and like, you know, hoping that if somebody gives you the keys to, uh, to a television show, you don't drive it off the fucking cliff. Um, because you know what you're doing. And you have, you know, a couple of hundreds of hours of TV episodes behind you. And that's just kind of it. You know, I, you know, I'm like one of, you know, several thousand working people in entertainment in Hollywood. And, you know, my nights and my weekends sitting around still trying to make the stuff that is I would like to watch and I would like to see. But then the rest of it's just kind of getting good, you know, trying to get good.

Is that writing, producing, directing? What does that mean for you? It's writing, although at a certain level, you end up producing the episodes that you write. Because with TV, a lot of the times, these directors will come and go on individual episodes. So you as a writer will be there as kind of continuity for the cast, continuity for the crew, making sure, you know, whatever the one little hour is in 10 hours or 22 hours makes sense. Are we talking about, are we talking about comedy, like sitcom drama? Like what are you drawn to? It's all drama. I mean, everything that I do is drama. I'm like, yeah, I'm just, I'm just not, you know, the comedians out here are so funny. I also live for drama. Yeah. I mean, I think that. I mean, it is two different things, I guess. But I mean, I don't know. I don't. Comedians are funny, but I feel like writing TV comedy versus being funny is kind of two different things. Yeah. Well, they kind of ate our lunch, right? Like it's like suddenly like the most deep, real character studies committed to screen are like BoJack Horseman and like Master of None and Insecure. And, you know, they're doing all the heavy work that, you know. Matt Weiner and David Chase and, you know, guys a generation ago were doing on like HBO and AMC and all these other stuff. It's all the comedians that are cracking that ground. Well, I guess they do make it a little more palatable for like a wider audience maybe. And that's part of the reason it works so well now. Yeah. I also think it's like, it's hard to, I think it's hard to digest. I mean, look, look at the times that we're living in right now, right? Like. Do you want some ponderously bummer fucking hour of television? Can you deal with that? You have to kind of give it a comic voice if you want to get people just because there's so much stuff out there and also the world is on fire.

Yeah, I mean, I think we've we've even I mean, we struggle with that here on this podcast because it's like, you know, our approach to life is pretty fucking light in general. I would say I would say for better or worse. And, you know, in the last couple of weeks, we tried to get serious and talk about some more serious topics because it's obviously top of mind. It's important that we've, you know, also had people on and kind of try to give them the platform to educate us and our like white bro listeners. Right. But it is – I think that that is what really is a fine line that some people are just very good at. It's like – and a couple of our guests have been that where they're able to give you this really dense information and in a very full and like enriching way. But they're able to like keep it light enough where you don't feel like you're reading a white paper. Or getting preached to. And I think that is something that's going to become really valuable as we move forward in this kind of moment in time. I think that's already here. I think comedians are the only people who are able to successfully do that right now. With Chappelle and you've been watching a lot of Patriot. What is it? Yeah, I just got turned on to that. All those shows just always seemed a little bit corny to me. And then I saw a couple of clips and I was like, this guy's fucking incredible. He's killing. Yeah. Yeah. And you're just, you're able to reach a much larger audience when you also make it entertaining and it never had to be entertaining before, but it kind of does now because we're all done. Yes. Are you guys, are you guys Charlie Brooker fans? Did you guys like get into Charlie Booker? No. Tell me more. So he, for a long time, he was like Britain's Jon Stewart. He ran a TV show called Newswipe. Didn't he create Black Mirror as well? And then he created Black Mirror, which to me is one of the coolest pivots. I think he got to the point where he was like, I got, like Jon Stewart, I think was just sort of like, I got burned out on this and I had to pass the torch.

I think what Charlie was doing was he was like, I got burned out on trying to like laugh about it because I was crying every day while I'm like writing this stuff, trying to find the joke that I just like kind of had to go really deep to the other side, you know, and tell it in a completely different way, which I think is, you know, that's the other flip side to, to comedy is that I think if you, if you've got something smart and it's in a genre medium, or you can kind of just take people. out of the reality of what they're in right now, you can have those conversations through a lie about something that's a little bit truer. No, no, I would agree. I was not familiar, though. I think that the Brits always do it pretty well, though, so I'm sure I would like it. Yeah, they're fucking good at shit, aren't they? I mean, they truly give you everything that I love. Don't give them too much credit. They've given me most of the music I love, so I give them a pass for a lot of shit. You know what I mean? I might be too generous, but well, I think that, you know, again, I think it's really interesting to be in the position you're in as someone who's like covered. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but you were there for Iraq, correct? Yeah. What years were you, I mean, I don't know if you want to answer that, but what years were you corresponding on MTV? Because I mean, I grew up watching you and we're also, you know, a very similar age. So that's also tough for me to swallow as well. Believe me, becoming a dad has certainly made me accept that I am a middle-aged white dude. And the next phase after this is just looking like Mandy Patinkin for the rest of my life. Gideon, to be fair, this podcast is literally about us realizing we're middle-aged white dudes. So welcome to the 12th. I think it's less of us realizing and more of us fighting against it every day. Yeah. Doing whatever it takes to make ourselves look younger. I kind of embraced it. Like, I think I've come to like realize that I, this, I sort of was this all along, you know what I mean? Like where it's like, you know, when you get your driver's license and your first thing is like picking up all your friends cause they're tripping on acid and like stuck and the other wrong side of the Lincoln tunnel. And you're like, Oh fuck man, I should be the one on acid. And you're like, Oh fuck, I've been a dad the entire time. Yeah.

So basically, if you guys need a ride, I'm just telling you, I can come pick you up. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Jason probably lives down the street. So it's possible, you know. If you get stuck in Arrowhead, Jay, just, you know. Oh. We'll talk after the show. Yeah, we will. So I started working when I was very, very young. I started working when I was 21 years old. I got hired at MTV. um, in 1999, in the fall of 1999 to cover the 2000 presidential campaign. And yeah, it was sort of a novel concept. Like I knew how to like the big thing when I was, um, in college was dogma 95 and this notion that, you know, you had this kind of breakthrough of, uh, shooting what's now an archaic format, which is mini DV. Um, you know, Spike Jones had shot, like a fat lip video and like that short about bull riding on like the PC 100. And then Lars von Trier, um, had, and had shot, um, most of his stuff. And I'm trying to think like who else there was like a couple of people who basically were like, use cheap cameras, use only natural lighting. Um, and you know, this is going to be the new box that you can kind of try to deconstruct content inside in cinema. And, I was really into that because it was cheap and it reminded me a lot of the skateboarding videos I had all watched while I was growing up in New York City. The Yashica T4 of video, perhaps. The Yashica T4 of video. Fucking great shout out to the Yashica T4. Those people don't need any more acclaim. They don't need the resale value to increase on eBay anymore. Those things have already doubled in price since I started buying them 15 years ago. I remember when there was a crazy run on them. People found out Terry Richardson. Chris has been following Terry in his private...

practices for years now kind of shadowing his actions hope not no i i do think though that they when when terry and ryan were really popping and people found out that's what it was and that's the same thing that's happened with the contacts he's like yeah it's like juergen teller uses it and then fucking kylie then kendall jenner and and frank ocean used it so now it's a thousand dollars instead of 400 And yeah, that's insane. That's insane, right? Because the whole thing was they were like plastic lenses, right? Like it was just like... Yeah, I mean, well, the thing with the Yashica is it's a plastic camera, but it has the Carl Zeiss lens. So that's why it's so good. And the Contax is a better, more substantial camera. So it should cost more, but it should not cost $1,000. But, you know, it's like anything else. If they stop making it and people fetishize it, the price is going up. Yeah. So I don't know if there's ever going to be the equivalent thing. I should like hop on eBay and see what like a PC 100 goes for now. I mean, I just like we used to joke where one of my buddies had a had a baby. He's not that was not that much older than that. Kids in college now. And we used to joke, you know, his son would never know. I mean, it was a joke. We would be like, you're never going to know tape. You're never going to know film. It's all flying around in the air. sure shit like yeah 100% Tyler the creator disagrees with that yeah I mean I think that there will always be a generation you know we'll always fetishize what came for us like certain people but I mean I do the mini DV thing is something I don't have any experience with but I do I know the term from like cool friends talking about it so they gave they basically you were using that because of Such a small budget that MTV gave you or was this? No, I'd like, I initially I was, it was crazy. I was, um, there was, Oh my God, what's the fucking name? I don't even remember the name anymore. It was, um, this like, it wasn't Den. What the fuck was it called? Holy shit. This is now this is me getting old, right? It's like forgetting it. Um, there was a, there was a.com startup that was trying to do TV on the internet, which was something you.

It was a great concept, but it was like 10, 15 years ahead of its time. And I got a job learning how to do nonlinear editing and learning how to shoot on a mini DV. And so MTV was like looking for essentially people who were going to shoot themselves, like be a one man band. You could shoot yourself and you could tell a story and then you would just send your tapes back to MTV and MTV would cut it up. And they thought, you know, Now everyone with the camera or everyone on TikTok, this is just like a mass cultural thing. But we really were, it was myself and six other people, we were like the first generation of like what you would call user-generated content. And they thought, well, this is going to be such a novel thing. It's kind of like the real world, right? Like we just take six real people and we say, go tell a story about what politics in America is or just go have a road trip across America and we'll give you a... Very small amount of money for that. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't think it was going to be my life. I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't like what I was trying to do. It wasn't who I wanted to be. And, you know, I kind of just got, I was, I was put on the road with John McCain when I was 21 years old in, in Manchester, New Hampshire. And he was like, you know, suddenly my college bullshit sessions where I would stay up all night was staying up all night talking with him and his family. And, you know. That's crazy. Yeah. I mean, I think the difference in access to is that is really telling. Like, I feel like there's no way that that kind of access would happen with the candidate now. I think that's right. I think that's absolutely right. I don't I think I mean, everything is so I remember with Obama, my friend Amy Rice made this documentary about Barack Obama. where she kind of got on really early on. And the only reason I think she got the access that she did was he was considered such a long shot in the fall of 2007 that he was like, yeah, sure. Follow me around. You know, let's go like, you know, this is going to be John Edwards versus Hillary Clinton. There's no way that this is going to happen. And then, you know, she said it really decisively somewhere around May of the subsequent year. She was on the apps and, you know.

I think that that is what is the most interesting about that job. I mean, because you did this for a while. Yeah. And I think that to me, the most interesting part is access. And then also, like, I think the difficulty for anyone in your position, especially at that age, is keeping their personal politics out of it. And was that really, I feel like for a 25, 26 year old, that's much harder than for a 50 year old. Yeah, 25 year old for trash. Well, it's also like, I mean, I really felt it on a corporate level, right? Which was like, I would say these things and I would come back to MTV and I would be like, you have to, you know, call George W. Bush out on his bullshit, you know? Yeah, yeah. I just, I remember and, you know. you get a lot, I got a lot of, and you know, how do you deal with it? Right? Like it's your first job. It's super, you're super tenuous and you're standing in a room, you're 22 years old, 21 years old. You're standing in a room with a bunch of people in their forties and they're saying, no, we got to like both sides of this shit, you know? And what you're not hearing is the reason that we've got to both sides. This has nothing to do with how we're serving the audience. It has everything to do with like a broader corporate strategy about not pissing off affiliates. In small markets, in central, you know, in different states. At the end of the day, you know, we're only doing this because it's a loss leader for us. And that if we get our ass hauled in front of Congress for perpetuating stereotypes about black people, for putting out demigrating images about women, we can point to you who's doing your like pro voter rally and say, we're not all bad. And, um, that was like a real awakening for me where I was like, oh shit, like I'm your, I'm your bandaid, right? Like I'm your excuse. Um, and the whole thing went fucking ass over tit when nine 11 happened because suddenly you were, you were there for that, right? Yeah. And like, suddenly there was a situation where, um, none of those mid-level executives, none of that, that like, um,

bureaucratic pyramid of cowardice was anything I had to deal with anymore because no one was putting anything on air. It was just me and my little dipshit camera for two weeks. For two weeks, I did 50% of the programming on MTV. I did not know that. That's fucking insane. I was going to be fucking fired three days before 9-11. Like the illest shit was they gave me my walking papers. So the VMAs, there was like this very famous... Onion headline after 9-11, which was just a picture of the VMAs, and it said, Nation longs to care about meaningless bullshit yet again. And that's what happened. They told me they didn't need me anymore. They were like, we don't need a politics or social affairs or actual news person. Why don't you go? I was like writing for Vice and I was writing for Spin at that time. They're like, you know, why don't we work on an exit strategy? And I was like, OK. And, you know, it was that Tuesday morning. I was just commuting to work. And by the time I got to Times Square, you know, I would get there early, right? To like read the news wires and like pitch the news of the day and like, you know, scour the gossip blogs and stuff like that. And it was like me and like two other people in the present of the network. And she was like, put on a clean shirt. You're going to have to go on air. And then they evacuated all of Times Square and we were out on our own. And she called me up and she was like, you know, we'll give you, you know, a three minute block every 15 minutes if you can fill it. And I was like, well, all I need to fill it is my fucking laptop and my, my, my, my phone or not my phone, my camera. And you're like, wait, what's wrong with my shirt? You're like, hold on, hold on. Rival schools? It's green and they're holding hands. But yeah, and then that was it. And then, you know, eight weeks later, I was in Afghanistan. Shit, man. So you were how old when 9-11 happened? 23.

Okay, so 23 and you become 50% of the coverage. Yeah. And I also think that it's important for people to understand MTV was like a big fucking deal then. You know what I mean? It's not like it is now. This was like maybe not prime time, but like it was a very important network that young people were glued to. Yeah. And also you were 23. you know, in 2000, you know, 20 years ago when you, every 23 year old did not have a lifetime of experience with being on camera and sharing their thoughts with the world. No, it was, I mean, it was, it was really like, there wasn't any, um, yeah, you know, there wasn't an affect. I mean, I guess I tried not to be affected. I mean, I think insofar as I've like, if there was a shtick, it was. The best thing anybody's ever said to me about my job, if they've met me in real life after seeing me do that, you know, 20 years ago is, oh, you're the exact same person. Like what I saw on TV is who you are in real life. Like there's not a, there's no stick. First person to ever do that, by the way. Well done. Yeah, seriously. First and last. Just you and Letterman. That's it. Thanks, man. Look, I'm not trying to, you know, I'm not trying to. blow myself on your podcast, but like, I, I mean, I think there was something to that, right? Like if you were guilelessly experiencing a sense of loss or fear, like that was such a, instead of trying to sit there in, you know, as the voice of God, the way that a news anchor does, you were just leveling with people and being like, I'm scared shitless. This is my home down. You know, and everything that we tried to do after was just kind of like stunt work of like, this is what it's like to get on a plane for the first time, you know, after a lockdown. And I'm literally shitting my pants. Yeah. And just, you know, again, I think. You're being a human being. Yeah. Reality, you know, reality is just a construct. And authenticity just be like, it's such a. It's kind of.

You know, now we have a reality star as a president and that term and that idea has kind of gone so in such a twisted fashion. But I think that there was a time where like, I don't know, being real was. I don't know. I mean, like. I don't know. It was rare. It was rare. I mean, I think that I think it's still it's still odd to, you know, and rare to be a truly real, real. real person you know especially if there's a camera involved i mean i think that that's what is so interesting talking to you about this now with the climate of the the world as it stands um i think that the lack of of voices in in you know real positions to listen to that are keeping it real i would say there's almost none you know what i mean um that in a big major news way um And I think that that is something – I think that alternative news source and what MTV provided at that time, what you were able to provide, would be so beneficial now coming from a bigger place than Instagram TV. You know what I mean? I think it – like maybe that's my age showing that I would love to see something like that on the actual television. But I do think that's a very hard concept to wrap your mind around in 2020. And I'm sure it's the same for you as a person who did it. I don't know. I mean, you know, it's kind of it's it's I don't know, like who or I don't know if that's a business that the tech companies want to be in. Yeah. But it's sort of it feels like I mean, it feels like it's not really a place for. It's not a place for like a media company anymore to kind of fill that space. It's almost. if you're a tech company and you just have the audience capture it. Cause the only thing that really matters is that you've got, you know, the distribution platform, if that makes sense. I think Netflix is doing the, you know, they're the only ones who are really doing a good job at giving a voice to those people. And Netflix is, is now real television for most, you know, young people.

I feel like our attention is so – I don't know. I can't explain it. I just remember the way that MTV News would – you'd cut in. There was this urgency about stories, whether it's like Kurt Cobain's suicide or 9-11 or Afghanistan. I remember a lot of those moments from watching MTV and cutting in and seeing you or their co-hosts telling me about it. I think there's something to be said about seeing – someone that feels like your peer but in a position of power because it's coming from a television network speaking to you directly. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. First of all, alleged suicide, but go on. Yeah, I'm sorry. Or whatever that guy's name is. No comment. Yeah, no comment. That really is, though, that's really, I think, what it is, is that it's like, I think now... It's it's it's a it's a very busy marketplace for that peer to peer reporting. And I think it's it's hard to kind of suss out who like it took me this long to discover the Patriot Act, which is clearly a show that's made for me. But because of the way it's marketed and maybe because of something I'd seen or heard, I immediately dismissed it. And there's a thousand other options for me to watch. Right. You know, it's it's, you know. It's a dangerous thing, but in a weird way, there is an argument for gatekeeping. There is an argument for editorial that I think, especially when you look at a lot of the tech companies, they basically say, well, that's just not our bag. We're not the people that do that. A lot of signal gets lost in the noise of volume. about earlier eras, even though, I mean, the downside is that they were exclusionary of so many voices and so many stories, you know, based on subsets of age, based on subsets of race, based on subsets of gender. But by the same time, you still had people who had a shared reality. And I think, you know, the most dangerous thing about now is it's like, I don't know if you've ever had like narcissists in your life.

you know, or you've like dated people who are like, Chris has a mirror. Yes. Yeah. I was about to say, I think that it's either Jason or me and maybe both of us, but yeah, continue. Well, we do have a podcast. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're white guys with a podcast. It's a spectrum. It's all a spectrum. That's true. That's true. You know, like if, if you can't share a reality with someone, you know, which is always, uh, if, if, if, you know, you are being gaslit by a friend or a partner or a family member, uh, or a coworker or, um, there's just nothing to be had there. Like if you can't share a basic reality, if you can't go outside and both agree that the sky is blue, like what, how the fuck are you going to do anything? And I sort of feel like that's kind of the problem now is that there's very little shared reality. I mean, I feel like the only shared reality we have is what? Like a dollar is a dollar. And beyond that, like. No, Bitcoin took care of that. Yeah. I mean, no, you're right. I think that a shared reality is something we are. I mean, I think that is also the clearest illustration of that that's currently happening is like the politicization, the politicalization of coronavirus. You know, it's like when I'm when I'm driving south. you know, talking to someone in Richmond, they're like, Oh yeah, there's a set of people here. If they see you wearing a mask, they assume you're anti-Trump, you know? And I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like this, this is a virus. This has nothing to do with politics, you know? Um, which is that, that to me is, is a very, is the most telling and the most illustrative. Cause it's, it's just, whereas the, the stuff with the stuff with race and people holding onto monuments and slags and stuff is also very confusing to me. That just seems so – I just – I don't know. That to me is another like separate reality where like the same thing means two different things to two different people. Yeah, it's – that's the weirdest thing I feel about like – yeah. Like it's a fucking mask, right? Like it's just a fucking mask. Like nobody's – how did that – how the fuck did that happen, right?

I mean, I simplest, easiest shit. I know that. And that's the thing. But I think that, like, I mean, to consider that, I mean, to think of that as something that's imposing on your personal freedom is just so backwards to me because it's for the greater good. The same way that taking down a Confederate statue is for the greater good. How could you not just how could you not just be like, OK, well, this is I we're all inherently selfish, but this is for the greater good of the world. Maybe I'll just rock with it. Because it's like, you know, on some base level, I can understand this is going to benefit something greater than me. Yeah, it's weird what the America is going to look like after all of this. Like, I genuinely like, you know, again, I think about it in the context of like, what's the world and, you know, my son's going to grow up in. Yeah. That's a scary thought. Well, it's just, you know, it is one of those things. It is. You know, you feel that cold wind just kind of blow over you when you think about it because, you know, the degree of damage that has taken place in the last four years, and I don't want to just pin it on Trump because there's been so much systemic rot going on in this country since, you know, when I was 20 years ago when I started. And it's like, I don't, I don't know. I don't know if I, I don't know if I, I don't know. I mean, I wonder sometimes whether or not you should just pack up the RV and head back up north, Chris. I mean, look, you're not the first person to say that. I think that it's, and that's, that's something also interesting about Canada is that, you know, I, they have their own problems, but they just seem so much lesser. And part of that I think is not true. And I think part of that is maybe seeing it through the lens of America and, and just being like, wow, everything is so fucked here that you guys must, must be better than us, you know? Which I think is, you know, is true in a lot of cases, but they, they have their own issues. But I mean, I, yeah, I mean, I did not pick the best time to reconnect with America by any means, but, but, but I mean, I, I'm really happy that I did because I think it's important for me as like a,

a 37-year-old white man from the South to experience this in as real of a way as I can, I think it would be kind of selfish to avoid it beyond reading it or listening to it. It's not like I'm on the front lines and I'm blowing up cop cars, but even the proximity to that and going to some protests and being in the actual climate is very different than being in Canada and reading it on the news. Yeah. Yeah, I find I found them really heartening. I found like the degree of organization and. Yeah, just all of the people taking to the streets over the last couple of weeks. I mean, it reminded me of the anti-war protests against Iraq. It reminded me of the million women marches, you know, in the beginning of of of of January of 2017. Like if there is a degree of. sustained public outcry, I think you'll see change for the better. But it's just, you know, people just got to, this has to become now part of life. Well, that's a question that we've asked a lot on the show. And as someone who's obviously politically minded and covered this stuff really closely for a long time, it's like, what does it mean? Like, what do we want to see that will make people feel better and that positivity push them to continue to go? Like what, what are those things? Is it erecting cops? Is it, is it, are these all just small victories? Like what do we need to feel better? Um, fuck man. That's a heavy question to ask. Like I'm a television writer living in Hollywood. Like, no, no, of course. But again, I think that it's of course, no, no question. But I just think that you. have this unique, you've been in this unique place to see stuff change, like from the front lines and talk to people who are involved in it. So I think there may be some parallels you could find that we just aren't, aren't able to understand or access, you know? Yeah. I mean, look, I think, um, I just think like, I, again, I don't know how you get there. Right. But like, yeah, it's sort of, um,

I'm just trying to think about what I was going to say just to make sure this is coming out the right way. There's been this thing in American society where I think if you look at the way, if you actually look at the founding documents of this country, and they talk about things like a commonwealth, like a shared sense of something, like the commonwealth of Virginia or the commonwealth of Massachusetts. that the actual basis for this country wasn't individual liberty. It was about an experiment in some kind of shared society. Like, yes, you have protection of your individual rights. And yes, you have this degree of expressed and enshrined freedoms that was unlike anything the world had seen. And admittedly, at that point, only for white slave owning, you know, land holding Christian men. But that definition of freedom. broadened and broadened and broadened. What didn't broaden was the kind of sense of public or civic participation, right? Like everything became private. Like you think about the term public school or public pool or public bus or public park, everything public has a negative sheen to it. But if you say private equity, private club, private jet, like this notion of exclusion of other people. became really sexy right like you know the work in the private sector don't do anything in public life and for some way like that pendulum has to swing back you have to go back to a society where there's a sense of yes i'm here but also i'm getting something back you know from my tax dollars i'm getting something back from an investment in the infrastructure i'm participating Because there's a moral and social and ethical good to participate, you know, not just for myself, but for my fellow man and fellow woman and fellow person. And, you know, I don't know if you can legislate that, but instead of, you know, cutting a bunch of like $67 billion checks to Boeing to bail them out or like refusing to tell, you know, just the rot is so corrupt.

Like, I'm really bummed Bernie Sanders is not the nominee. I think if you had two weeks extra of primarying for the Democratic Party, you would have a real existential conversation in this country about what we want the political system to look like, who we want it to serve, and why for the first time in 20 or 30 years. And I think that's the kind of conversation that you need to have. You know, when you read that, you know, young people are more socialistic, more civic minded, you know, less high on the notion of like winner take all capitalism than the boomers. You got to kind of move a society that kind of reflects that because otherwise, you know, just so many people are getting hung out to dry by institutions that are fundamentally corrupt, whether it's the police or whether it's sort of the. long-term career politicians yeah damn that's that's actually a pretty interesting take um and and one that we haven't heard before uh but yeah i mean i think that the borderline marxists yeah you know just maybe chris maybe if i reframe it for you'll understand uh we just have to remove you remove classism from the world and we'll be okay Yeah, to all you TikTok kids out there, seize the means of production, which in this case is yourselves, and use it to break the state. I mean, look, I think they're trying. I think they're trying. I don't know if they're as focused or as concise as you are, but I think they're trying. Now, you're certified Gen X, right? I think I am, yeah. I was born in 78. I'm the wrong side of that 1980. I'm so jealous, man. That's my only dream is to be Gen X. It's all of my taste. I feel like you have talked to all of my Gen X heroes, so I just think it's a little bit of a – I feel misplaced as a late millennial. Who makes that cut? Well, I mean, I'm 82.

So, like you said, 80 is the switch. It's the cut of gin. I mean, it's literally everyone from, you know, the actors, actresses, the music. It's just all of that stuff feels more relevant to me and informs everything now. And it's a little bit, like, scary because I think that's when you really start to feel like you're getting old. Yeah. Like, when people think of gin blossoms as, like, grocery store music, I'm like... no, he's talking about, they got slaps. Like, let me go through the catalog and explain to you how important they were. And you know what I mean? Something like that. I think it's like a lot of that stuff is lost on, on young people. You know, I have a lot of friends who are just like, what are you talking about, bro? Yeah. I mean, well, do you remember like, I, I remember it feeling like all that early punk stuff, right? Like that was such a big, like defining punk, post-punk, like New York, cool, all that, please kill me stuff was sort of like, The playbook in the background when we were drunk fuck ups running around the Lower East Side. And that book, I mean, I'm sure you loved it. Oh, I loved it. I loved it. I mean, I would like, you know, skate around and try to find out like where the Fillmore West or Fillmore East was and all that stuff. I think a lot of that music is what surprised me the most about that book was. It reminded me of Interpol. Interpol holds up pretty well. I would say Interpol holds up better than a lot of stuff from that time, which really surprised me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's funny. They're making a documentary based on Meet Me in the Bathroom based on a movie book. I've heard about this. I've heard tale. I just gave them a whole bunch of footage. I used to bring my camera to all of these. you know, shows, very early shows, really early. Yeah. Yeah. Shows really early Walkman shows, really early stroke shows, stuff like that. So I had all this like bootleg footage. The audio is terrible, right? Like, cause it's like a camera mic. Yeah. But you know, you're like standing on the side of a stage in a room with like 30 or 40 people. It's like all the little cut scenes in 24 hour party people. Yeah. Um, so I was just watching a bunch of this stuff. I'll give you some of my Interpol stuff. I think you'll dig it. That's it. That's cool that you have. Did they interview you or did you just give them footage?

I just gave him footage. A very nice English lady named Vivian Perry showed up at my house when my wife was due to give birth to my son any minute and was like, she's like, can I see your stuff? And I was like, yeah, sure. I don't know if you want it. And she like punched her hand in the air like a NASCAR winner, took a fucking box full of mini TVs and then went back to England. And that's the last of... I can't wait. I can't wait for that. I mean, I knew something would happen, but I think that those... I've read a lot of oral histories because I think there's a duo that did one about ESPN, that did one about CAA, that did one about must-see TV. All of those are incredible and could be made into documentaries, I think, since that's how people want to consume things now. Well, I think all of that stuff might come back post-current revolution. I feel like music with guitars could return. Yeah, so you guys shit on that 1975 record in your intros all the time, and I'm like, wait a second, these are gentlemen with guitars. No, I mean, I like to make fun of the 1975 because they are annoying, but... Look, you put on a 25-song record. I'm going to make fun of you because that's fucking annoying. But there's some songs on that record. There's like three or four songs that are amazing. But I guess they're one of those bands that I don't fully get. You know what I mean? I just think it really does feel like, okay, this is like a little bit young for me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, as it should be. It's not for us. It's for like if you're like a teenager on the edge of town, you know. staring at the lights of the city, smoking a cigarette, wondering if you're ever going to escape, if you're ever going to find love. Exactly. Everybody's crazy, but you're not. Are these lyrics from a 1975 song? Yeah. But I do think that the things that you just said are part of every song of every generation that matters to kids like that. Hardcore and punk especially, it's funny for me to think about that.

continuing on after i moved on yeah you know it's like it's like a funny thing to think about like other kids are still going to a basement to see a band play i'm sure yeah how much of that i mean it's funny because i wonder how much of that it's weird because i look at a lot of that stuff now and like the context of whiteness um of that was i don't think anything that i was like really as aware of at the time in part because i think you know You had, you know, the politics of so much of that stuff was so like radically about, you know, being community facing and liberal politics. And but. But it was all white dudes. It was all white dudes. It was all white dudes. It was all white dudes. And the notion of like white hardcore in a weird way, when I see these like Boogaloo guys are like, I watch what happened to like Gavin McInnes. Yeah. And that they've like, there's now a strain of disaffected whiteness that has embraced assault rifles and the internet. Yeah. And it's, it's weird because I'm like. first of all, you guys are all a bunch of miscreant fucking demons, but also like, I know you, you should be like floor punching to the gorilla biscuits in a basement. If yeah, what happened? And then it's that thing of like, where you're like, well, like, Is there really that big of a personality difference between like that heart, you know, the hard left and the hard right faction? Was it just a question of timing? Was it just a question of the scene? Like, did you just take a bunch of disaffected, angry white dudes and then like be like, no, it's going to be about veganism. And like, yeah, I think it's I think it's where you found yourself on the Internet at a certain point. You know what I mean? I think it's like I agree. I mean, Atlanta was really politically charged and super open about. Obviously, like sexuality and, you know, men and women and just that everything was really progressive. But the underlying current is 100 percent like we're all white, like 100 percent. You know, I could name the five black guys that I knew from going to hardcore shows because that was all there was. And I doubt that's changed very much. Maybe I'm wrong. But I think a lot of that also has to do with it being.

kind of like a suburban thing in a lot of ways. Um, I think a lot of everyone that I knew, um, obviously the scene itself existed in the city exclusive, almost not exclusively, but almost exclusively, um, everyone lived in the suburbs, you know? Um, so I think it might be, you know, a white flight, hardcore crossover, you know? Yeah. It's, I mean, it, it's sort of one of those things that you kind of, I mean, skateboarding was not that right like skateboarding always was way more inclusive but like certainly hardcore was profoundly profoundly um homogenous no it had it had so many i mean i'm really grateful that i was into that and jason was too i think it just it kind of paved a path for me that i was able to uh navigate and and like take the good from it but yeah i mean i think looking back it was mostly positive for me but I also realized that like how could it not be you know I was like a upper middle class white guy going to the city to hang out with my friends you know yeah it's like that's really what it was when you when you break it down like no matter how radical it is when you're 14 years old that's what's happening you know yeah you just you want to find your clubhouse yeah exactly and I do think skateboarding I mean we had a guy on the podcast yes He's a black guy. He was talking about skateboarding and the race stuff and skateboarding a little more. But I'm not as well-versed in that. But I think that if you consider – if you look at skateboarding as a sport, it makes a little more sense. Right, right. Hey, Gideon, what do you think is going to happen when Donald Trump dies? Well, they're telling me the – Unleashing of a fair amount of champagne in the Yego household. Pop of bottles of the Yegos. I mean, it's kind of, you know, that's such a great question because it's like under what context, right? Like, you know, if he dies in office tomorrow, do you have a bunch of like QAnon crazies running around? All I can hope, all I can hope is that they, they prosecute the living shit out of Jared Kushner, Stephen Miller.

and Donald Trump Jr. in the Southern District of New York. I think the big thing for me as somebody who kind of came of age covering Iraq was looking at how much Iraq was a war of choice for two dudes in particular who were like Gerald Ford's chief of staff, right? Like Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld were the guys that had pushed this war. And it was the first time I had... I think ever really like spent a lot of time in a occupied nation at war. That was a free fire zone in, in, in, in several districts. And it was hard not to think that like, if someone had just kind of stripped these dudes of their ideological credentials, like if they had just stopped their careers or stomped them out in Washington, DC at a certain point, you never would have gotten, you know, you would never have had, you know, hundreds of thousands of civilian dead. And, you know, millions of people displaced. And what I really worry about is this kind of generation of like young fascists who kind of have come up under the Tea Party, of whom I think Stephen Miller, Donald Trump Jr., maybe Jared Kushner are great examples. Wildly inept, like wildly unqualified ideological hitmen. who have, you know, created concentration camps for Mexican kids on the U S Mexico border and like challenged the rule of law, um, and gotten wealthy off of it if they weren't born rich, uh, and now have 20 to 30 years ahead of them for careers where they're going to be like, well, what's my next act? I want to see your fucking next act. Like fucking, you know, prison handcuffs, man. I want, you know, You should have your politics participation card taken the fuck away from you. Like bring back moral hazard, guys. Like it's just – Well, what do you think is going to happen? What do you think is going to happen in this election, bro? That's the bottom line because I thought Trumpito was going to take it. But I feel like the last – since the Rose Garden with the Bible shit, I feel like he's fallen on hard times. I think –

You know, let's nobody get comfy. No, of course. Let's all make sure everyone we know is registered to vote. Let's all, like, you know. Classic Diego here on the front lines of vote or die. Yeah, man. Vintage, vintage Diego. Vintage. Vote or die. Like, just, you know, stay aware, stay involved, stay active, talk to your friends about it. you know, just check in. Like it might seem like it's an awkward thing, but just make sure everybody's got their shit going. Like press where you can make it seem like it's a worthwhile thing to do. And then when fucking Cheeto is out on the rails, you know, I think you have to start to rebuild, but that's not, I mean, I think he just kind of. You see what happens. You'll see what happens. It's really up in the air. It's up in the air who his VP is. It's up in the air whether or not he survives the first one to two years in office. This is a nation that's at war with itself. And anything that is a war takes much longer than you expect to resolve itself. I think we should just have a full-up conversation, which is that this has been a cold civil war in America for a long time. And to get on the right side, you know, the union won the last time. If you want to have the union win again, you just got to kind of stay up on it and use the mechanisms of power that are available to you to keep a sustained effort. Because you might not have money, but you have numbers and you have money with a large number of people and that can affect an immense amount of change. And just run young, talented. folks that look like us that share our sensibilities and that seem effective and um flush the fucking toilet on uh on on the boomers and that's uh damn wow our man just dropped the hammer with a fuck boomers sorry sorry about that chris but yeah it had to be said hey shut up man i'm not a boomer i'm not i mean i he's not you're not a boomer you're the boomer

Okay, I'll take that. I'll take that. Are you working on anything you can talk about or anything you're excited about? Yeah. Let's see. I was shooting a television show for Apple with Justin Theroux and Melissa George called Mosquito Coast when everything got pulled for COVID. I was working with a guy named Neil Cross who did Luther. Did you get any bicep tips from Thoreau, or did you cut all the sleeves off your shirts, or are you still wearing sleeves? Yeah, it's a completely sleeve-free household. Sleeve-free household. Me, my wife, and my child. When these gun sales are surging in America, they're not just talking about firearms. Thoreau really had an impact. Thoreau really had an impact on the whole house. I love that. A lot of my former colleagues had worked with him on Leftovers from a show that was on Manhattan. I didn't work on it. No, no. I worked on a show called Manhattan and basically they, Damon Lindelof picked up a large portion of that show and dropped it into the Leftovers writing room and they made, you know, one of the great television series of all time. So I was fortunate enough to like have crossover where I said, Hey, you know, you'd work with, you know, these other former colleagues of mine. Yeah. I'm developing a TV show with two really talented Columbia directors. Did you guys see a movie called Birds of Passage that came out a couple years ago? I know the title, but I did not see it. It's interesting, man. It's a lot like City of God. It's a drug story told through – I mean they just made a movie with Johnny Depp and Mark Brylance where they did an adaptation of – Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Katsia. Just super, super talented directing team. And we kind of fell into each other's orbit and hit it off. And so we have a pilot that they're down in Mexico City shooting a miniseries about Cortez with Javier Bardem right now. I'm oddly shooting a ton down in Mexico. It's not that odd. It's the only place in the world that allows shooting right now.

They're shut down, man. Oh, really? Yeah, COVID's like spiking down there. I talk to people down there every day and hopefully, you know, we'll get on the right side of it. But I think, you know, it's a bit like South Korea, right? Like any society that's used to making stuff or that is an industrial society also tends to have like an incredibly industrial adept. you know, artistic community. And I think, you know, right now you'd be hard pressed to find just the bench of talent, you know, DPs, gaffers, production designers, uh, directors, editors, like then you would find in and around Mexico because of Alfonso Cuaron. Um, you know, uh, it's just, it's interesting. Yeah. Mexico's the new Burbank. Mexico is the new Burbank. You heard it here first. Top three TV shows all time. Top three TV shows all time. Don't say Sopranos. Fuck you, Chris. Wow. Top three TV shows. Can I take a beat and just think this one through? Yeah, go ahead. Chris and I can talk about ours. Obviously, Madman is in there. The office? No. So I'm going to go number one is an easy one. Number one is Twilight Zone. Like the classic Rod Serling Twilight Zone. That's some real head shit. That's a real head's answer. I feel like a real industry plant shit right there. Would you think it's safe to say that the world we're living in right now is kind of like the Twilight Zone? I think the world that we're living in right now is definitely like the Twilight Zone. Okay. Shit. Top three television shows of all time. Take a beat. Hundreds of thousands of people are going to hear this. Something to consider. Over a 30-year time period. That's fair. Fair data. I'm going to throw the wire in there. I'll say that knowing full well that...

The fifth season was kind of basura. There's just so much about that that is so good in so many ways. I think of it really as a classic text. And then number three. Monday Night Football? I mean, is it like... Home improvement? The challenge? Definitely the challenge. Is it cheating? to go for... Oh, shit. I really want to think of something good. Entourage? Definitely Entourage. Like, is it... Oh, fuck it. Sex of the City? Selling Sunset? I'm going to go ahead... Fuck. I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to save my so-called life. Yes! There we go. That's the Gen X daddy I was looking for. Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to call it just like as a character study of like, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to throw my so-called life in there. You know, it really just makes me think about Leto's range. I mean, honestly, the man has done it all. I mean, it's crazy. Yeah, he really has. And he's in one of the biggest, worst bands of all time. Oh, my God. Do you remember? I don't want to turn this into a talking shift session, but like. I remember we got, I used to get some angry call-ins when I would make fun of like 30 seconds to Mars on MTV news. Mars hive does not stand for it. I will say that. So let me, let me explain what happened. Let me explain this. Like what happened was my friend Vicki was a, she was a stringer for spin and she wrote an article on 30 seconds to Mars and not her. But one of the, you know, when you write for a magazine, someone else will often come up with the headline, came up with the headline, the obvious, easy, low dunk, which was my so-called band, right? Of course. Like, how could they not? Like, how could you not? How could you not? Exquisite. And so he corners her outside. Is Irving Plaza still a venue?

It actually, it is the, it is where that cool church happens now in New York, but it is also still a venue. So he and his brother ended up cornering Vicky outside of the show in a very aggressive way. She was maybe 115 pounds smoking wet. I always forget about, I always forget about the troll brother that's in the band. I always forget about that. Yeah. And like, Had a bit of a kind of like actorly diva moment where she felt like super cornered. And I think she was really shook. You know, I had a cigarette with her after because I walked outside and I was like, I was covering the show for some other reason. I was like, what happened? They cornered me against a fucking tour bus and like was all up in my face. And I thought he was going to hit me. And then he punched the tour bus right next to my head. And like, what? Yeah. Yeah. And so at that point, I was like. Oh, I'm just going to make fun of this band every time. For the rest of my life. For the rest of my career on MTV. I'm just going to have to like fucking throw digs at this thing. And they used to hoot and holler. And I used to hear from, I forget if they were like RCA or Atlantic, but I used to hear from their like video promotion people. They're like, why do you have such a thing against this band? And I was like, my guy. Why not? Why do they want to be a woman? Like, I just, I don't, I don't. We need to get into this, I guess, but did you really interview people that were your fucking heroes a handful of times, or was it mostly shit you were like, it was current and it mattered, but it didn't matter to you personally? It was push and pull, right? For every puddle of mud hour of your life, you had to... Choose your words wisely. Yeah, your video feed is dead, but, like, I just wanted to, like, go live now and it just would be, like, a bunch of puddle of mud merch. You know, there was always, like, the manufactured prepackaged shit that, like, MTV was trying to, like, pipe down teenage gullets, like... All-American rejects. Yeah, try to make foie gras out of the American cultural liver, if you will. We will, we will. And then, you know, but, like, the...

you could pitch stuff up. So there would be like times, I mean, I remember, God, you know, when Iggy Pop did that one record with Mike Watt, they brought the Stooges back together and all that stuff. They didn't want to carry it for shit. But then I ended up having like the most delightful lunch of my life with like Iggy Pop and his girlfriend. And like, it was, we used maybe. two minutes of footage from the whole thing but it was like one of those life-changing things where i was like i just want to talk to you about like yeah of course making funhouse and like you know i mean that's the silver lining of that job i feel like especially in tv during that time there was a lot of shit but like it was it's probably cooler than people actually remember like they would do stuff like this more often than people give them credit for i feel like yeah we did i mean i remember You know, RIP Adam Yauch, but like Adam and I, I mean, right after September 11th happened, right? Like there was this moment where Adam was one of the first people who realized what I was doing and why I was doing. Like I had this microphone and I was just trying to broadcast out like peace and love and sensibility and like, you know. don't take this out on a kid who looks different than you. If you were in a small town in America, because everyone's afraid, right? Like that was, that was the drumbeat behind everything that I did around September 11th, right? Like those, those two weeks. And yeah, it was like, Oh, you're from Queens. And I was like, yeah. And like, this was my hero. Like white Jewish kid from fucking Queens. Are you kidding me? Like, of course, of course the beastie boys were like who you wanted to be. And Yalke was like, all right. And I remember. September 11th was on Tuesday. On that Thursday, I had them in the studio at MTV with a bare bones crew. And it was me, Mike, Adam, and Adam at just chopping it up, man, just chopping it up in like a really real way. And like, I, you know, I remember the first conversation I had that night of September 11th was with Muhammad Ali because I was like, I need a, what the fuck? Really? Yeah. It was the illest shit. Oh dude. I was like sitting in my, it was the illest shit.

I because we knew that hate crimes were a thing, right? Because Matthew Shepard had died that year and James Byrd had been lynched in Texas. And these were stories that I had done. We had done, you know, a big part of our thing that year. My thing that year was trying to cover hate crimes and hate crimes legislation against young people, specifically about gender, you know, specifically about sexuality, because I think Matthew Shepard was a young man. And I think, you know, there was it was a sea change. Certainly in culture for how we talked about sexuality, how we talked about gender. And I was like, I need who's the most prominent American Muslim that I can put on MTV to say ours is not a religion of violence. You know what Al Qaeda has done is not, you know, you know, I grew up in a community in Queens with tons of, you know, Muslims from South Asia, Muslims from Africa, Muslims from Europe. And. And then it was just like, well, of course it's Muhammad Ali, right? Like this is the most prominent. And I did that thing. I cold called at 23. I cold called his wife, who was his manager, who I got their number because my grandfather had died of Parkinson's and I knew that he was on this Parkinson's board. And I like, I found them through this weird Parkinson's charity. And that night, you know, sitting in my apartment, which was covered in dust. And the only part that wasn't covered in dust was my, was my tub, my bathtub, sat in my bathtub. And I recorded a speakerphone conversation with Muhammad Ali and we piped it out. That was the first thing that we piped out for MTV the next day. I ran to an NOC and I plugged it into a fucking satellite feed. I had Muhammad Ali saying, you know, just a soundbite of him basically saying, I decry this and this is not the spirit of the faith that I'm with. And I'm staying with America. I'm a proud American and all of these things. But it was a part of a 45 minute. I couldn't get my parents on the phone. And I got Muhammad Ali on him. That's fucking great. That's insane. That's an incredible story. Yeah, it was – and that's the sort of shit that was – yeah, that was really blessed. That was really a magical way to grow up. Shit. All right, well, I mean – Thank you for your service, Gideon. Yeah, I can't really follow that. I mean, fuck, that's great. I mean, I think that's – there's going to be highs and lows to stuff like that, and it sounds like there were a lot of highs, thankfully.

yeah they really were um tell people where they first of all when are these shows coming out like do you have something coming out oh i have no fucking idea covid you know okay we can't get 120 people back on set yet i'll you know just assume uh yeah when it'll come out i'll ring follow follow gideon on social media he will post whenever these great shows come out yeah fuck yeah uh fuck jared leto Fuck Jared Kushner. Fuck Jared Kushner. This is a whole lot of other Jared. This is a fuck Jared podcast. We don't fuck with Jared from Subway. Fuck Jared from Subway. We fuck with Jared Leto. Gideon, what are your handles on Twitter and Instagram? Gideon Diego, Gideon Diego. Oh, of course he's got the full name, like the king. Gideon, thank you for joining us. It's been a pleasure to catch up. And I really appreciate you taking the time. Yeah, thanks for having me. And Jay, when you come down out of Lake Arrowhead, people start seeing each other in person. I'll see you in person. It's a date, my friend.