870. - Tom Freston

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? It is an overcast rare Thursday recording. We've had to adjust our schedule. because we have the gq man of the year awards tomorrow night i'm in los angeles and so is jason i gotta say big bro i needed i needed sun and i'm not getting it and i'm not gonna get it from what i understand a little rain tomorrow got a little internal like i said you just missed it bro 87 degrees yesterday or whatever it was so you you're at the chateau and our listeners should know your your suitcase with your podcasting equipment is being held hostage because They're setting up a red carpet in the little area for some dumb event tomorrow. So that's why you hear Chris's voice. I don't think it will sound that bad, to be honest. I didn't say it's going to sound bad. I'm going to say it sounds different. Different. Well, yeah, I ran to Will in the lobby, and he was like, yeah, we're getting... They're saying it's an atmospheric river vibe tomorrow. So we've decided to make a few changes to the layout to make sure everything's covered. The atmospheric river. I forgot about that phrase. It's such a great descriptive term. It really says so much. But he didn't seem stressed, so I'm not stressed. Yeah, we'll throw a little money at that problem. It doesn't have to be all indoors. I mean, all outdoors, right? No, it doesn't. It really doesn't. Yeah, I'm excited. After this, I'm going to hop in the sauna.

head over there we got some table reads feeling very writers roomy i can't wait to get the uh the checks mix going and the whatever we ordered the sweet green orders protein plate don't worry i already i already ran into 15 producers uh that said hello um that i recognized from our zoom calls so they're ready walking they've got the gummy they got the gummy worms out in cups already somewhere somewhere in this fucking are you a red vine or a twizzler household Oh, that's why those motherfuckers get fat. The writer room don't pay enough to put on 20 for eating all the snacks. They should give you the option is GLP-1 or snacks. You can't do both. GLP-1 or PB&J, whichever one. That's it. In the writer, I see that all y'all do is eat. That's all you do. Yeah. Writers, I feel for you. I know it's tempting. I have the same. Look, you put your cheeses in front of me, it's going to be tough. Don't leave them around you. Don't leave your cheeses around me. true eater for real chris as famously known as a real eater of course um yeah sorry about the web i'll be in new york this weekend djing a wedding prayed it let's pray that we go wheels up i feel good about it though i'm not worried about it i honestly did i mean i honestly it was business as usual today it was busy like it was busy like it was you know it wasn't it didn't feel different in that way Not a lot of crying, not a lot of people sleeping on cots and waiting in bread lines or anything like that. Now that winter's hitting, I think people are trying to put those masks back on. Oh, you mean because it's like... Cold season. Cold season. What a little bitch. You know what, Jason? It's shocking to me that people don't. I trust my immune system. I feed my immune system. I'm nice to it. I coddle it. I keep it warm. I cool it down. If you take care of the system, it should work fine. You know? Like, obviously, there's other factors involved. But I just noticed, like, I went to the Wednesday show last night at Brooklyn Steel.

And of course, there were some masks in that audience. You already know there's some masks. They got masks that ain't even out yet up in that age. They got the new shit. I saw a lot of masks at that show, but also the people wearing the mask, and this is disappointing, closer to our age than college age. When I went to that All Ages Electro Clash and Slow Dive Festival, I saw a lot of people wearing masks. It was really... But it was like one or the other. There was no gray area. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like with adulthood, it's really all over the place. And some people are hypochondriac-y than others. And some people have actual illnesses and blah, blah, blah. But when I was there, it was either like I have an emotional support backpack that's also a panda bear. And I have my mask. And I have my earmuffs. And I have my... Yes. You know when like the horse, they have to wear the little thing on the horse so they don't get spooked from the side. They got that shit on. It's either those people where if you, like, walk past them, they go, like, just by, like, being in there. It's either that or just people, like, puking on the floor or just like, what up, dude? My name's Brad. You guys want to, like, fuck later? I'm wearing a tank top and have a septum piercing and smoked a whole pack of cigarettes. I don't know what day it is. Yeah, that is the... I brought my dad here. He's chill. That is sort of the... That is kind of what... a lot of shows are like now i think that that divide of but i but i like that everyone with young people at least everyone gets along and no one is oh yeah yeah no one is i mean it's different if depending on the show at a wednesday show it's a lot of nice people probably less right wing conservative. I would say zero of that. Maybe very respectful of everyone's space. It wasn't actually, you know, I was standing in a little balcony and they weren't super respectful of my space. If I'm keeping it a hundred with you, I think they were like this big sis bitch is in my way. I can't see. I just, I was kind of trying to keep my little spot as the show started. I felt like I was getting a little, they were encroaching. I feel like some baristas were edging me out. When, when, when we were at the Addison Ray show in the balcony, if somebody tries to encroach, guess what?

no no dice you got to crawl down on your head chase suey wonder's got to crawl down on the floor hands and knees luke gotta sniff my nuts if he wants to see us and ray and he might like it that's the fucked up okay over a wednesday you're saying they felt a little more entitled they felt entitled and i i i and i mean you suffer from this way more than i ever would but i i i am uh aware of my size and that i am probably obscuring someone's view and i want to be respectful of that master over here yeah I want to be respectful of that because, you know, they paid the money to see the band they love, you know, as much as I did. I want to donate to Greenpeace, too. I want to do a lot of shit, Chris. I wouldn't do that. No, don't put that on my jacket, big dog. Well, all I'm saying, I want to see what happens at a show that has a little more rowdy energy, you know what I mean? I want to see you rip someone's N95 off in the pit. Oh, don't worry. When American Nightmare plays at Rough Trade Record Store, I'm about to go fucking crazy. Don't even worry about it. There's no masks. I don't think there's no masks there. So before the show, Jacob and I went to Bernie's. I'm sure you've heard of Bernie's. It's a restaurant in Greenpoint. And I've been there once or twice for an event. And I have to say, and I told the owner this, but second best veggie burger in the world, maybe. After... after houston's really it was yeah it was and i it was very very good i was really impressed so does it go houston bernie then superiority i i love superiority's sandwiches the burger isn't my favorite thing you know what i'm saying like the sandwiches are so good there's a lot of them that are really good but the the burger is fine this burger was multi-patty and exactly and it felt it just felt like are you saying more than two I think it was two, but with shredded lettuce, American cheese, sesame seed bun. Okay, standard, standard. No funny shit. No funny shit. No fig jam, no blue cheese. But I told Oliver, I was like, bro, this thing is really fucking good. The fries, it was just a great. What farm was the shredders from? You know what? I am going to inquire about that because I was like, bro, is this shit all vegetables? He looked at me like, yeah, you fucking idiot, of course. He's like, look, I don't know, man. Do you remember how popular fake meat was for like a three-year period?

I feel like it was, but it's over. It's like kind of over. Yeah. I mean, I still see impossible every once in a while, but it feels very, it's giving phased out. I'm referring more so to beyond. I feel like that was a fucking rocket ship. And then it just fucking people were like, wait, this is actually terrible for you. I don't like, I'm not going to eat this. A lot of, a lot of undigestible gluten in play. Look, I was, I made the truck to Brooklyn last night and it was a success all around. And that makes me feel great. Okay. You've been doing good over there in Brooklyn lately, bopping over to tame. we over at strange delight now bernie's with wednesday i saw i saw strange i saw strange delight guy at allison roman's book party and i but i didn't get to say what's up to him and i wanted i was like oh that's my he's wearing the hat so it was a giveaway but sure good restaurant good guy restaurant okay well the next time i'm in new york we can try to do one more cool we'll do a noodle pudding and i'm ready to go if i have to hear about it one more time before i eat there i might kill myself but i'm gonna eat there i don't care if jack antonov lives upstairs and only because lena used to go there i'm gonna go up on jack i'm gonna knock on jack's door and be like all right let's see what you really got bitch i want to hit like let's get in here i want to get in the i want to get in the lab not a not a fight you want him to write a hit okay my my i've had a long i thought you meant like i'll let you have first punch No, I mean, I would let him have first punch. It ain't, I can take a look. The photo of Margaret sitting on his lap where he's wearing the NBA basketball shorts and the wife, Peter. A lot of people are like, you guys don't get it. This is the perfect, this is how all Jewish couples, they're like, this makes so much sense, actually. You don't understand. It was really funny. He's been pulling like this since day one. Yeah, I want to go knock on it. I think that's an idea for us, too, is that we show up at Emile's house or Mark Ronson's house or Jack Antonoff's house. We're like, all right.

All right, Wyatt, Andrew Wyatt. We got 12 hours. Let's see what we got. Let's see what we can do. So it's a little scared straight. Exactly. Sabotage. It's a little room raiders. Yes, a little room raiders. I'm going to do the white glove test on the NS10s. Please believe. No, you know, I'm not white gloving anything at a meal. No, no, no, no, no. No, but yeah, I think this is an idea I've had for a while where I'm like, how good. these i think of these guys as geniuses that are such a big part of the process and really are the ones doing it but like if you and i show up at tobias jester jr's fucking farm and you're out picking carrots and i'm like all right what do you got bro oh olivia dean can do it but i can't i pull the npc out of the suitcase and say start cooking i feel like fred again would be able to do this more than almost anyone else because all these other people it's kind of like showing up at jack kerouac house and be like all right Give me a nice little story about the American struggle off top. I need a 2,000-word story about the American struggle on site, like right now. Mozart, I need a Verizon jingle. My desk, sundown. There's an extra 1,500 in it for you if you can give me the stamps. Oh, God, that's so fucking funny. It's so good. All right, yeah, so anyway, we're here. Watch us on the live stream tomorrow. What time is the live stream? Yeah, it's 7 p.m. PST. If this comes out before then. Thursday night, 7 p.m. PSE on the live stream. Hopefully we'll cut it up for YouTube. We're going to be talking to all of our favorite men and women, additionally, of the year. Got to give it up to the men. Thank you to our GQ family, Will Wells, for inviting us to do this. We're happy to be here. I think that's it, Jason. I'll see you in a couple hours for more reading. Do you still want to get dinner after our table read, just to keep it all the way Hollywood with it? We should. And there's also some... There's some partying happening at one of your favorite places that has also been added to the slate, just if you're interested. The slate for tonight? Yeah, yeah, a little pre, you know, a little something light. I have a facial at 845. How's this going to work? Yeah, that's the whole point. It fixes it, the problems. I'm so glad we had this convo. Okay, what's the party? I'll bleep it. Got it. You know, and I was like, I think Jake's going to be here. So we'll see. I'm going to feel insane, I'm sure. Is this a USB situation?

For me? I mean, does Asad use vinyl or does he use USB? I think he can handle both. That's a good point. Go bump him in his silk shirt out of the way and see what you can put a little Madonna on for the heads. I'll blaze Asad a little ass tonight. No, thank you guys for listening. Howlonggone.com. And we'll see you on the World Wide Web. Thank you. Wagwan. Oh, this is huge for me personally. This episode of How Long 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 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. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Squarespace. Obviously, Jason, you and I spend a lot of time on the World Wide Web, so do our peers, our listeners, our friends, our colleagues, maybe even your parents if they're freaky. And if you're doing anything in the world...

writing, taking pictures. I do topless boxing. You need a website. Exactly. A website that works, that does what it's supposed to do, that allows you to be creative but also business-minded. Jason, there's one place to go for that, Squarespace. Yeah, Chris, I'm over here. I'm modifying calculators and putting Claude inside of them so you could cheat at school. And I just want a place where I could 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 how long for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code how long to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. All right, Tom, look, thank you for joining us on How Long Gone. Are you in your study? Is this an office? It looks like this is where I work. This is my office, but it's in my home. I'm in Manhattan. I'm in New York. So I'm just working a worker bee here. Sure, sure, sure. So you don't need to, at this point in your life, you don't feel the need to separate sort of home and work with an office that you have to commute to. You're happy to stay at home. It's a mixed blessing for those of you with home offices. When you used to leave it, that was like a punctuation mark, leaving the office. When you have it in your house, it's sort of like a monkey on your back. You can always dwind back in there. But it's convenient. It's an easy commute. If nothing else. Are you an uptown guy? I'm an uptown guy now. I lived in Tribeca for like 20 years, but I moved uptown.

Here I am. Okay, so you described yourself as a worker bee. At this point in your life and career, what are we diligently working away at? You know, there's an old maxim that work will expand to fit the amount of time you had if work was always your default position. So I do a bunch of things. The main thing I'm doing these days is promoting this book. But other than that, I've been the board chair of this thing called the One Campaign, which is this anti-poverty advocacy group focuses on Africa, does red. Shout out to Bono. Yes. So I've been doing that. I'm the board chair for 18 years. And, you know, in the wake of a lot of the Trump cutback, I'm really busy. That takes up a lot of my time. OK. I've been working with these. TV networks in Afghanistan. I went back there and I'm still trying to see how we can solve it. Yeah, I want to get into your relationship with Afghanistan because I think you're the only person I know that has been there. Let's get the charity stuff out of the way at the beginning, Tom. Well, that is charity stuff because I'm working there for free. I was helping them set up the first commercial thing after the fall of the Taliban. The idea was this was going to help build tolerance. They never really had television, help socialize and civilize people, connect them to each other, all of that. They never really had television. No. So now you kind of pivoted that to educational stuff for the Afghanistan people? That's right. No politics, just math and stuff, I'm assuming. Yes, that's right. And we had like 250 advertisers when things were booming. Now there's one. Okay, so we cut the ad revenue. It's like Red Bull. Red Bull. Because it's like these energy drinks because there's no alcohol. People just want to get jacked up doing stuff. It's a little cardamom Red Bull or whatever Zoran's drinking. That's what they're selling ads for. They have their versions of the Red Bull. But it's that we get money from foundations like Malala and Gage to do educational programming for Afghan women who've been marginalized. When's the first time you went there, though? Like the 60s? I went there in 72.

I went there in [redacted address]. But you were just on like a vibes mission at first? I was on a vibe mission. What was her name, Tom? What was her name? Susan. Got it. A famous Afghani name, Susan. I was advised to go there. I had been in advertising in New York. They had tried to get me to work on Charmin toilet paper, and I quit. That was the last straw for me. And this woman said, come and meet me in Paris. We're going to cross the Sahara Desert. I did that, stayed with her a couple months, and then I kind of went everywhere. And then I met this Susan in Greece who told me. India, that's like the Holy Grail, the greatest show on earth. So I went over land and stopped in Afghanistan after being in Iran and Lebanon and so forth. And I just got a fascination with the place. It really struck me. It was beautiful. People think of Afghanistan now as this barbaric place where everybody's fighting all the time. But back then, I mean, they had a tourist poster. They didn't have any tourists. But you say, visit Afghanistan and see the world's friendliest people. And you can attest to that. You agree that they are the friendliest people. I did. They were very hospitable. It was a beautiful land. It was exotic. It was like I was stepping out of time. It was intoxicating. What was your look at the time? It was a little hair. I had a different haircut, you know. I imagine the hair was a little longer, but was there any, what was the look as far as the tattered rags? Yeah, I'm imagining a Jay Peterman from television Seinfeld, you know, trekking from Manhattan to Timbuktu. I spent a year on the road with two changes of clothes, so by the time I got there, they were a little ragged, but, you know, I would pick up clothes along the way. Okay, so we were traveling. We were traveling light. I was traveling with a duffel bag. Yes. Okay. Hitchhiking down the Silk Road. I did. I hitchhiked there. And what was the Hindu Kush looking like over there in Afghanistan at the time? Well, they were always like 20,000-plus-foot mountains covered with snow. They were beautiful. There was no pollution because there was hardly any cars. Now it's a whole other story. I'm talking more about the cush. I might have a little crystal on snow cap, different kind of cap on the mountains. Afghanistan had the best hashish in the world.

They were proud of that, but no one called it Hindu Kush. It was a Kush variety. That kind of came about when those California botanists got into it and started naming strange. Wiz Khalifa took that and ran with it, didn't he, Tom? They did. Hindu Kush had a whole new name, but it was very relaxing. When I checked in at immigration going across the border, they said, you've got to stay here at our hotel. It's too dangerous to leave. And then the guy at the government hotel, I changed some money, and then he said, you want hashish? And he holds up all these little discs. He says, you know, we have the world's finest hashish. I said, isn't this duty-free? He's going, duty-free. I go, you know. Is this a fucking trick? We're at a government building. You're selling me hashish? It was everywhere, yeah. That was a good part. So that sounds like when I go to San Francisco, they say, here. Welcome to the hotel. Don't go outside, though. It's not safe. Yes. We'll keep you indoors but occupied. Okay. So final verdict, the hash is quite relaxing, but you don't really partake anymore, I'm assuming, or who knows? No, I do. I do. Okay. My man. You know, whenever I find the time. You're a real lifer. I appreciate that. That's commitment. Yeah. And inspiration to me because you look great and professional and successful. And if you're still smoking some pot. What an inspiration. Well, a little here and there is good for you. For your mind, brother. Yeah, it feels like it informed your approach to life a little bit, but you didn't let it, let's say, take over like some people might. No, I've seen that. I've seen that. I've seen that. I was an old light user. Sure. Good, good, good. Half a joint, max. Well, as somebody who came from the advertising world knew how to sell one or two things, when you touch down and you see... all this going on over there, were the alarms ticking in your head of opportunities of how you could sell this stuff back to Americans? Yeah, well, first of all, I met this woman in Greece and she would show up at these beach cafes and she had trunks of clothes and she lived in Kathmandu in Nepal. And she said, well, I'd been there for four years. She was an American and she would make her own clothes and then ferry them to Greece and Italy and sell them.

I saw that and I said, wow, that's interesting. I could do that. What about if I could do that on a grander level, sell to stores? What I was really looking to do was find a way to support myself over there so I could live there and travel because I was just totally engaged. It was crazy over there in those days. You're really living life on the earth. Would you call it lawless? Is that fair to say? Well, I wouldn't say it was lawless. No, I'm Afghani. Afghanistan. My main business was in India, which was then sort of the greatest show on earth, crowded and crazy and sort of a socialist incarnation. But it was the hardest work I ever did in my life. But I got a house in Delhi and I wanted to live there. So I started this business and it became quite lucrative. So was it easy as an American to come in there and just rent a house if you had cash or buy a house if you had cash? No. They were very, very paranoid of foreigners. And today, if you're American, you can go work there. But in those days, the Indians were, you know, newly independent, paranoid about foreigners, getting out of colonialism and all that. But my agent, I found a partner in India, so he would rent the house for me. We would live there. And, you know, you could live quite a nice life. It wasn't that expensive. It was really, you could live like a pasha. But I built the business, and it grew and grew, and it was a lot of fun, and I got to travel everywhere. One of your first big scores was getting the Bloomingdale's account, and we had Gene Pressman from the Barneys family on a month or two ago. I listened to that podcast. He was in Palm Beach. Yeah, he's down in Palm Beach. He gave up. You're still fighting the good fight. Yeah, he's on the bench down there. He's on the bench. He needs a little bench time. But I guess my question was, was there ever a desire to be into Barney's or did you want Bloomingdale's more than Barney's? Was there a bidding war or do you know Gene? In those days, Barney, we were in like most of the Macy's, Bonwood Teller, which is now the Trump building. Macy's, Barney's then was largely.

On 7th Avenue, he probably explained it to you in his early incarnation selling discount suits. So it wasn't really the player that Gene made it to be at that point. Do you have a relationship to Palm Beach? I feel like you really said it with some pizzazz in your voice. No. I don't have any. I'd much prefer California than to be a Florida man. Okay. Yeah, I would have to agree with you. So you're saying if you need a little R&R, you would rather go to California or are you like a Hamptons guy? I'd go to California. I mean, I've been out in the Hamptons, but, you know, I like a good beach. They have lovely beaches. little traffic jam out there you know sure well yeah chris chris just flew in from jfk he's at the chateau marmont right now is that where you stay or do you stay somewhere else in la uh well i had a house there for a lot of years and i sold it before that i used to stay at the sunset marquee And then when I was on an expense account, I used to go to the Hotel Bel Air in the olden days. And now I'm sort of in between hotels. When I go out there, I don't know where to stay. I generally stay with a couple of friends. I feel like your friends have houses bigger than my friends, so you kind of have your own entrance maybe. It's a little easier to bunk up with the homies. If you feel like going all the way over Malibu, yeah. I have some friends who have some money, but I also have some living closer to the ground like you guys. Thank you for noticing within 50 minutes. 15 minutes that we were living closer to the ground. You got a Moonves on the top. You got a Graydon Cartway down below. You're at the Chateau out there. You know, that's pretty cool. I've stayed there a bunch of times. I love the Chateau. It is cool. It's also an expensive hotel in its own way, but the Bel Air is very special. That feels like its own planet. I've never stayed there, actually. I've only been for, like, lunch, but it feels very removed. It used to be... They closed it for three years to renovate it and modernize it. So I would find a trend. Whenever a hotel that was nice and kind of unique and had wooden floors, and then they redo it and everything has a marble floor, it generally loses the vibe. The charm is gone for sure. They can charge more somehow. They always find a way to charge more. Yes, that's not a problem. Okay, well, you said you were coming back here on the expense accounts way back in the olden days.

You're obviously exaggerating a little bit, but in your mind, it seems like you were in that perfect time where the getting was good, the last great moment of the media entertainment world. If you could put a year, like around what year did the media landscape kind of stop being a fun place that was ascending versus whatever it is now? The 80s and 90s were totally key. I mean, the 80s had the beginning of the cable TV revolution. And that kind of carried through big time right on through the 90s. So MTV, Comedy Central, all the cable networks were really like cash machines. And then we began to see the decimation of that as the digital revolution began in the early 2000s. And I'd say I left in 2006. And that's when, you know, YouTube had launched in 2005. Facebook was just getting going. How do you manage your business going downhill as cable homes dropped off? More people, particularly younger people, were moving their time in media to the Internet and various websites and so forth. And then social media came along and it's been tough sledding. You know, I want to ask you a question about Nielsen, the rating system, because I feel like that was. And now everything we get is not accurate. Is that fair to say? I think so. I mean, I don't know what their methodologies are. I don't know how they can keep track of everybody's on phones and they're, you know, they're, you know, you just don't know where it used to be easy when you had three networks to meter and then you had 35 cable networks. They thought that was complicated. Now it's like infinite fragmentation. You know, there's smart people there and they're trying to figure it out. And I haven't kept that close of track of it anymore. But I would imagine it's not as accurate as it used to be. You know, they can add up the traffic on websites and so forth and aggregate it. And on podcasts. Podcasts are easy. Yeah. Like you guys. You guys know exactly how many people download you and how long they listen, right? Yeah.

I can't count that high, thankfully. Those are boxcar numbers. Exactly. We got their genders. We got their pronouns. We got it all, Tom. I would say the data we get is maybe too much. There's data I don't need. I don't like data. I don't care about it, but I want one number that feels... Successful like we should like podcast should have one like FICO credit score to show the overall health and quality. Yeah, exactly. That would be good. Yeah. I mean, even if you're like a like a guy with 600 Instagram followers like me, you get all this data. I mean, what am I going to do? This is more data than I used to get running a cable network. Well, luckily for you, the trend now with it's it's considered hot for a guy to have low followers. Oh, so you're kind of. You're at the forefront. Mine, you know, they're probably dying off of old age, and it's dwindling. I need new users, but maybe it's good there. I get down to one or two people. Yeah, you get all the way. Let's see. I'll be, like, totally analog. Yeah, just one person is all you got left, one person. Yeah, I mean, podcasting is what is your podcast digestion? Do you listen a lot or no? I don't listen as much as I'd like to because I don't really have these moments where, like, I'm driving a car. or um you know yeah but i i do smart lists i've listened to a bunch of yours i do walter isaacson i do some science stuff i do stuff to the daily and things like that but i don't i don't sure i don't listen to podcasts or audiobooks as much as most other people do so you're not walking the dogs you're not i don't have a dog to walk or i'm not Smoking a dog walker or however that goes. And you're not a ton of dish doing every night and taking the trash out, things like that. No. Going to clean out the garage? I live by myself. I don't have that much trash. Damn, bro. Really? Tom, you're living the dream, man. All right, you live alone. You got no dog. You don't do dishes? No, I don't do dishes. Your doorman listens to your podcasts for you, probably. I don't know if it makes me a bad person, but, you know. I think that all of our media consumption really is dependent on sort of age and habit.

how willing you are to break those, you know, or modify those after years and years of doing it a way that works for you. Yeah, I've been surprised when I talked to my publisher. This is my first book I had out. So e-books and audio books are anywhere from 30 to 75 percent of the amount of books they sell these days, which is, you know, the hardcover books are like a dwindling species. I said, where the hell do people have time to spend 13 hours listening to somebody's book? You know, it's hard to just whiz through it. But they do. I don't have a car. I tried an audio book one time, and I just was like, yeah, you know, I totally understand it, and I think it's efficient, but it just didn't feel the same. I like a biography or a memoir for the audio book while I'm working out. That's what I like. If it's read by the author, it's kind of interesting. You know, that makes it nice. Well, you've got to get mine then, you know. 11 hours of me. You know, you're only getting one hour. I can knock that out on a weekend with the kettlebells, Tom, no problemo. You don't listen to music. I mean, at work out you've got to listen to some upbeat music, so I guess. No, no, I'm already upbeat. And once we get to the smart list level, we'll be able to get the copy of the book and we can read it before we have you on so we can talk about your rich life and history. But it is an honor to be talking to somebody who was on smart list the same week. which means that we've closed the gap between our sworn enemies. Tom, we consider SmartList the enemy because they're doing exactly what we do, but they're rich from it. Just a few guys talking about some bullshit, and they happen to be very rich. I'm thinking this is the greatest job in America. They're getting $100 million deals, no set, no hair, no makeup. No jokes. It's all there. Like you guys. They say they're working in their underwear, and I can see you guys are, too. Well, look, when we get two different $100 million deals, my underwear is going to change, too. It's going to be a whole different me. Yeah, but when they finish their Viore underwear podcast, they go out and play golf and get lunch. I'm in the trenches. I have the episode fired up.

He's doing the booking. I'm doing the post-production. We're promoting it ourselves. We're in the trenches, Tom. We're for the little guy. We're like you selling clothes in India for year one. You're in the trench at the Chateau. Look, hey, look, I'm saying there are some perks. I'm saying there's some perks, but we don't fly private. I just want to put that out there. I got that feeling. 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. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by a new podcast from The Guardian stateside with Kai and Carter. This is covering a lot of our bases, Jason. It's trying to slow down.

The news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what's happening in the world. And I know you particularly have quite a lot of questions. A lot of questions. But how often? Because we do this podcast three times a week and that's a sweet spot. How many times do they do? Three times a week. And I have a feeling just based on the platform and these talking points that they're maybe going to be covering different stuff than we do. That's just a guess. The Guardian is not some billionaire owned. They're not afraid to say what they want to say, brother. Yeah, Rupert ain't sniffing around in what journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman are up to over there at Stateside. But yeah, listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch it on YouTube. It's three times a week. And who couldn't use more news? Especially when it's not from here, let's say. Give it a listen. Give it a listen. Okay, so... We've got a lot of weird government shutdowns and things happening in the world. A lot of things that you used to do and be able to get away with, you know, tariffs and international importing and exporting. And so a lot of gray areas and legal loopholes and things like that that you've been able to sort of skirt around and take advantage of in your lifetime. After seeing all of that go down, what do you think the next kind of gray area or like little fuzzy loophole area is going to be the next to crumble? in our surveillance state yeah a loophole for what just anything anything legal you know just like how we used to be able to do all kinds of stuff and now we can't at all you know i don't know it's kind of a dark time that's right you know people keep saying this i went to jfk this morning i had no problems at all fully staffed and i feel like i keep hearing these horror stories on the internet but no one i haven't heard one from a human being A human being. I look at the news. I got like these lines going out the door and around the corner of some of these airports. It looks like it's a nightmare. I haven't been flying. I'm supposed to fly next week. So I'm a little terrified that I'm going to be in one of those lines outside. I think it's over. I feel like it's over to some extent. What is your. Did you build with Trump back in the day? I feel like you guys are probably crossing paths. Trump's in the news today, right? Not in a business sense. Just in a nightclub sense. Not in a business sense. Just in a party. An Epstein party. Just a chill.

I didn't really know Trump. I don't really know Trump very well. He used to always call up and want tickets to the Video Music Awards or the VH1 Fashion Awards, and we'd take care of him. Sometimes he would send me a note with that. You'd see that signature. No idea. The guy's not a lot of bad, but the signature is amazing. For all of his faults. Maybe his best work. That's his best work. Like a Japanese calligraphy master. I just feel like the idea of... calling you to get tickets to an award show that you have nothing to do with is such a it's such an ego move it really says a lot about someone well you know it was the mtv music awards he figured i was sort of mr mtv and you know why mess around go to me so you give donald trump tickets he he was sort of a you know quasi celebrity uh yeah he wasn't a real favorite in new york city you know no no no Still isn't, you know, from what I can tell. No, I mean, I think he got 20% of the vote the first time around. From what I can tell. But the MTV, I've been lucky enough to attend the MTV video. Maybe, when did you say you stopped? 2006. Honestly, I think I went the year after for the first time. I think. I think. But I remember I used to manage a band, and I remember you looming large. You know, our TRL success was very important to the Epic Records family. And I always found that TRL was such a magic time that can never be replicated. Yeah. I mean, we had more of a monoculture. And what was the band? They were called Cartel. As in Mexican? As in white guys from Conyers, Georgia. But yeah. As in Venezuelan drug cartel. That's right, Tom. The word is spelled the same. Yes, the word is spelled the same. But that was the first time I ever, you know, we were in like the green room at TRL and it was like. You know, us and Soulja Boy and, you know, and Natalie Portia. Melissa Joan Hart. Yeah, it was just like such a strange mix of people that you could get in the same room. And you're right, though. Like the audiences were all there was one audience. So it worked. Well, it was, you know, because you'd have three or four different music genres kind of locked together, which I always liked. That's how radio was in the 60s. You know, AM radio, top 40 radio was all kinds of different music. The Rolling Stones, the Supremes. Now everything is algorithmized.

How you might say it. How were your relationships with the like what what relationships were you managing the most during those MTV days? Was it with record labels mainly or was it with just your team or did you have to interface outside of the building a lot? Well, I, you know. We had to deal with the cable operators and satellite guys. They were our distributors. Then there was the advertisers who brought the money in. Those two groups brought the money in. And then there was the music industry who gave us our programming. And I kind of always gravitated towards the music guys because they love music and I love music. And we could kind of talk the same language. They were fun. They were clever. And we needed to have good relations with them because they were giving us these videos. So, you know, by default was sort of. hang out with the people who are more fun but i i had exposure to me too you know how that goes right yeah if you gotta choose a side yeah i'm trying not to kick it with the cable programmers quite as much as the a and r guys it does see you said the word clever and the word clever struck out at me as we are we could use a few more clever folks in in this in this whole world and industry you know the a lot of the creativity has been sucked out of the entertainment business at large in a way as Companies consolidated and cost became paramount. And as these entertainment, you know, when we started MTV, there was 40 record companies. A lot of them were run by like entrepreneurs and who based on their taste. And you love that, you know, the Ahmed Erdogans of the world and so forth. Chris Blackwell. Now it's two and a half record companies, really, you know, big ones. They're all consolidated. So they, you know, they run more efficiently, but, you know. On one level, you could say maybe music isn't as vibrant. I don't know if that's true. But a lot of the outsized characters that used to exist that made the business more interesting don't seem to exist anymore. And part of that is the woke thing kind of came along. And I don't know what happened to those characters. But it seems not to be as much fun. And people that I talk to in that business seem to tell me the same. But I don't know. That's because they're looking at stuff.

streaming numbers instead of out you know yeah discovering a band play you know it's a different thing i think it's a different i think the job has changed but you're right i also think that that the behavior that we're talking about sort of lifestyle is not rewarded in the same way that it was then that's true and i i think that um back in the day it was like the creative people were approached by the by the nerdy people the brands the whatever the money people and they say you guys are awesome here's a bunch of money, do whatever you want with whatever this is. And I feel like now the nerds are drunk with power and they have the ability to call the shots. And now, you know, I feel like we need to get the creative people back to doing the creative work versus doing the bidding of the brands because it's the only money left. Yeah. I mean, when the money got sucked out, I mean, in the 90s, say it was raining money for a lot of places. So you could afford to make mistakes and take risks. And you weren't held under such a microscope about everything had to work and work really efficiently. So it allows some sort of. More creative, larger than life, interesting people to fit in there and survive and prosper. We can't afford a mistake nowadays. It's not raiding money anymore. Yeah, I know. You're telling me. I would love to need an umbrella right now. I just want to ask about MTV News because I think that if you're our age, Jason and I are both in our early 40s. MTV News was, I mean, I remember like. you know life-changing events hearing about them from kurt loader gideon kurt loader tabitha soren like those people were like sort of like that's where you know they'd break in michael jackson died you put on mtv not cnn yeah when kurt cobain died they break in and they give you the news and i think that was pretty i feel like you guys did a good job of delivering that in a way that resonated with your audience but still got the the meat of the story across without having to sort of Put it on training wheels. Yeah, people love the news, and we built up a formidable news operation. And there's a formidable news library going back to 1980 that still exists. And, you know, MTV now become kind of a repository for reality shows. 16 and pregnant, whatever you want to do. Yeah, and speaking of our condolences for your loss of ridiculousness. They even saw the words music television off the bottom of the logo.

Because all the music people who were there, there were great people there like Judy McGrath. And I could list a whole, but they all kind of left and kind of traditional TV people came in. So there's no music equity really pumped into it. The news thing got marginalized. It was all about reality shows and ratings. And, you know, so now there's not much of a future for running music videos on traditional cable networks. The new owners there, the Ellisons. You know, they got a chance to reimagine what MTV could be as a music brand, because I do believe, you know, people you could get some corner of the music fan audience to go for someplace where people are having intelligent conversations about music. I agree 100 percent. I mean, I say you could bring back Unplugged and that would be enough, honestly, to some extent. I think that like that concept would resonate with an older audience, but also. really capture a new one that hasn't experienced that before. You can get Sabrina Carpenter to do that. You can get these people that are really popular to do that stuff. But I think that the opportunity feels... I mean, everybody still makes music videos, which I always find interesting because... They make more. I looked it up. They're making more now than ever. I mean, they make them more cheaply, but there's still some great ones, you know? No, no. But it's because YouTube is just a music discovery service. It's, like, not about the video. It's about a place to discover the song. Or the podcast. Right. Or anything. Yeah, yeah. It's a different thing, but it's, like, at least the video still gets made, I guess. But it's surprising how many there are, and they pump them out. But there's no context or conversation. around it or even about the music so much anymore uh maybe in some places but yeah i've noticed when i go to europe they still play music videos on television so it seems like it's a the american attention span is particularly fucked i i feel like the the news and the video like those two things seem very different in a lot of ways You know, as far as programming goes, but I feel like was that like a struggle to make that work or did it make a lot of sense based on the audience and sort of the way that the world felt at the time? Well, you know, when we started, we used to run music videos pretty much back to back. Then we realized we had a bigger place if we were also about some of the things that the music was about, which one of which was news and fashion and things like that. So we integrated that into the programming.

People were interested in that. And in the beginning, we found out like we did The Real World, which was firstly like the first reality show. Show changed my life, Tom. That's one of the greatest. Real World San Francisco is one of the greatest TV shows ever made. Young people at that age, they like to look at their peers and they get a lot of signals for how they're acting and what they're doing. And they're fascinated by it. But the problem was it sort of became contagious. And you had celebrity reality shows. We had the Osbournes. The networks realize that, hey, these reality shows are popular and we can make them cheaper than scripted comedies or dramas. So the airwaves get, you know, now we're into The Bachelor and all these competitive shows. And I don't know, The Apprentice would be a good example. It didn't necessarily lead to great things. It led to success for him. Don't talk about Omarosa like that, one of our greatest experts. One of the interesting parts about MTV's growth that I heard you mentioning in some other interviews was that it grew first, and correct me if I'm wrong, in the Midwest, in the middle of the country, and then it took some time to eventually get L.A. and New York on board and spread the good gospel about it, which seems like... a thing that doesn't it's the opposite of how almost everything works yeah there was one simple fact for that which was that was early days of cable so the cable really existed really in rural areas where people needed to get distant signals in and they had wires that allowed them to get the reception so you know like a place like tolter or wichita or des moines in the middle of america they had large cable systems and they needed programming when the cable thing started up so we would get carried there but no one in New York or LA who worked for us got us at home there was no you know when we launched it we had to find there was like one bar in New Jersey that had a satellite dish There was nobody had it. No one who worked there ever saw it. So it gradually moved from the Midwest. What a concept. Moved from the Midwest. And, you know, if you were in the Midwest, MTV was like revolutionary in those days. It wasn't a way, you know, hard to think now. You know, it wasn't like a flying car or something, but it had a new visual style and format that no one had ever seen before. Might as well be an alien transmission of what's going on in the world. Back when there was truly nothing else.

like that ever yeah ever those were the golden days it all goes back to technology which is sort of crazy you know i always take that out of it because i don't care or don't like romanticize that but that's like kind of what it comes out to like the satellite is what kind of made it all work but cable and then a satellite i thought if In 1985, they had all the choices that we have today with the Internet and satellite and all, you know, thousands of choices on every device. People would have loved it then. It wasn't like they suddenly got acclimated to this. It wasn't available. This is what people always wanted, to have control over what they wanted to see, wherever they wanted to see it, whenever they wanted to see it. So, you know, with technology, you're right, really, as it evolved, people cheered for it. Since we have a large brain in this space on the pod today, a lot of people talk about the reverse engineering of cable into streaming, and now there's so many streaming services. You might as well go back to cable, and there's bundles and rundles and all these things going on. There's a new acquisition of a new network every day, and it doesn't make any sense. How do you think the next step should be to get us back to a place that... we can find some more financial success. The first thing would be to be able to tell how many streaming services they have. It's like Substack. It's like the old days of cable. There's so many of these streaming services. I don't want to see your MX bill. I bet you got them all. You got Disney Plus. You got Paramount Plus. And you realize that you get Criterion in some of these niche ones, which are really good, but then you realize you don't watch them much. But it would be nice if someone could... Put them all together in a bundle like the old cable system, right? This is the new boss, same as the old boss. And then, you know, there's more choices within it. Some kind of packaging would be helpful to the consumer. Okay. I think people are working on that, but using AI to potentially do that, figure out what your tastes are based on them monitoring every single thing that you've looked at on your phone in your entire life, and they know you more than you know yourself.

and then every day you open your TV or your screen or whatever, and there's 11 Criterion movies that you have never seen being recommended to you that are about to change your life, and a Bravo show, and a new record or whatever. Do you feel like that's good, even though it's AI-based? No, I don't like that, because you're in a silo, and you never bump into something you don't know about. I heard someone say the other day, hey, you're on Instagram, you know, when they all that stuff. Press on something that you don't even care about and see where that leads you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, shift your algorithm and maybe. Okay, that's what the random button is for. Shuffle mode, you know what I mean? I don't have, I got to find that. You know, so you wrote this book and I feel like there's been a handful of books from, you know, your contemporaries and in other industries. You know, there's the Barry Diller. There's the Graydon Carter. There's the Keith McNally. Have you read? your competition how do you think you stack up well i gotta mine's a bit different sure i mean i think everyone would probably say that but i mean i try to make mine more an adventure story with a business story wrapped inside and i had a different kind of career path you've done a lot of you've done a lot of fucked up shit graben carter you know like graben carter had some magazines yeah i mean i took a lot of left-hand turns early on and what i found that you know life Off the mainstream was could be a lot more interesting and I would pursue those things and quit jobs and do different things and go live in different countries. And what I found out was that a lot of what I picked up in those years, which was, you know, living in Asia, for example, you know, you learn about humility, you learn about empathy, you learn about being, you know, able to move, you know, with and deal with eccentric people and deal with craziness and all of it. sort of prepared me for it was a perfect fit in a way to run an enterprise like MTV Networks was in its prime, which was sort of a creative focus thing, always trying to push boundaries and dealing with a lot of young people and being tolerant that that my background was different than your traditional television executive. And it worked for me in that particular company. You know, if I was.

running a CBS, which really required more mainstream kind of perspective, I might not have been nearly as successful. But we attracted, you know, like in our business, I put creative people in charge of all the networks, Doug Herzog, Judy McGrath, you know, because to me, that would send a signal to the employees that creativity was our main attribute. Our main aptitude. That's what we focused on. We weren't looking so much for the financial results. We were looking for creative results, one to encourage risk taking and so forth. And it worked for a long time. And so I would say that if you look at my book, I mean, about two thirds of it is about stuff outside the media business. I know what you mean, but I think that there's like. That was your experience, you know, with some of these with some of these. But like some people want to write 100 pages about their childhood. I don't give a fuck about that. Like, let's get to the good stuff. You had a lot of good stuff that wasn't necessarily like work related in the in the senses of the MTV sense. Exactly. So that's different. That would be different. That's not to say these guys didn't have, you know, Keith McNally's book is great. You know, it's a great story about triumphing in New York with those restaurants and and Barry Diller and Graydon. I mean, they were very successful, but. Mine has more of an element of adventure to it. I would love to drop Graydon in Mumbai, see how he does. But that's a different conversation. I took him to Cuba once, Graydon. Wait, didn't you guys all meet Fidel? We all had lunch with Fidel. Yeah, I wanted to go down there just to chase down the music scene. And then I told Brian Grazer about it. And he said, oh, man, I want to go. But he told somebody who told somebody. And the next thing I know, I got a... A plane load of moguls flying to a communist country I knew nothing about. And when we get there, you know, it was 2001. You know, at the hotel, you know, you had the Lucky Luciano suite. That suite's all named after gangsters at the hotel. It was a crazy time in Cuba. Then they said, well, Fidel would like to meet you.

Because I had made some appointments at the Ministry of Culture to try and drill into the music scene there. He said, Fidel wants to meet us. Come on. So we had lunch at the palace, and he wined and dined us. And he said at one point they had us in the Hall of Heroes or something, the Hall of Ferns, which is at the Presidential Palace. When we met, we had these rented convertibles. We came up the stairs to the palace, and he's standing to greet us, Fidel Castro. You know, a man from history. And I'm thinking, Jesus Christ, it's him. What's he going to say to us? And he looks at it, and the first thing out of his mouth is, which one of you guys made The Sopranos? Wow. So that's what got you in the door over there. He said he's like the only subscriber of HBO in all of Cuba. And Brad Gray raises his hand. He says, that was me. So maybe they're going to shoot me. Castro had a bad relationship with gangsters. Guy hasn't been seen since. So at that point, going to Cuba, you have to get a travel visa. It was like some paperwork, but you could still go. Oh, you had to get special visas. Yeah. And, you know, so I found this guy, Jonathan Brandstein from L.A. He's a comedy manager. He would go there all the time. So he kind of wired me up. It was just going to be me going. Sure. Before these other people came and he said, you get a cultural exchange visa and I could tell you how to do it. Blah, blah, blah. So this guy knew all the tricks of how to do it because it wasn't as easy as it might have been like during the Obama era. And then when it came out that we had lunch with Fidel Castro for five hours and people got a hold of that, they called the Bush White House and Cheney White House. And I got a letter saying, you went to Cuba, you had lunch with Fidel Castro, we're fining you $55,000. Wow. I go, whoa, whoa, man, that's ruined my day. And then, you know, we got Ry Cooter. Remember Ry Cooter? He did the Buena Vista Social. Yeah, of course. He had the same problem.

And he got a lawyer. And I said, so we got a lawyer. And there's a lawyer who used to work at the Treasury Department fining people for doing exactly this. He went to the dark side. He crossed over. He crossed over. And now he's representing people like this who we used to prosecute. So he said he'd get the fine down. So we all hired him. And, you know, we still had to pay a lot of money because his fees were high. So you're telling me that all of you guys got hit with a fine for going? Yeah, except Graydon Carter because he's Canadian. He was Canadian, and he was a journalist. Oh, I see. Journalists were exempt. So, yeah, we all got hit with $55,000 fines, and we had to, you know, hire this guy. I would have sent that invoice over to the desk of Fidel Castro. You got to pay for that one, Daddy. Fidel, call Cheney and work this out. I got a lot of time for this. Okay, that actually, Tom, that reminds me of a question I wanted to ask you. Who's the last person you had dinner with where you did not pick up the check? Where I did not pick up the check. Yes. I had dinner last night with a guy, Ozolution, who's got a company called Kaleidoscope. He's a podcaster. Yeah, yeah. He picked up the check. Wow. God bless him. Okay. Where'd you guys go eat? Look, I grab as many free checks as I can. You know, a few and far between, I'm sure. So you've got to take them when they come. Well. You know, it's not like I'm running around with an expense account anymore. This is coming out of Tom's pocket, so you've got to sort of protect the sheriff. Right. Where do you eat in New York? Where are your favorite spots? I live in New York, by the way. I'm just here visiting, but I live downtown. I live right near the courthouse, like sort of between Chinatown and Tribeca. So I'm in your general old, your former area. Yeah, well, I go down there. Where was I the other night? The Bowery Hotel in that area, and I went to – they have an L.A. branch they just opened down there. Jelena. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a new Jelena. It took a while to open it, and that's good. Well, it opened, and then it had a questionable fire. Had a flood, and then – Yeah, special kind of fire. Special kind of fire. But honestly, Jelena in New York is a very different experience, and it's pretty good, and the room – they did a really good job on the build-out. It's very nice.

Like the actual space is very nice. So I like going there and, you know, a whole host of downtown spots and uptown spots. I'll go to like there's a place called Elio's kind of old school Italian up on the east side or the modern, which is connected to MoMA. That's kind of fun to go to if you're going to a show or something. I still go to the Waverly over on Jane Street. Love the Waverly. It's on Waverly, yeah, corner of Waverly. I hadn't been there in a long time, and I went recently, and I forgot how fun it is. It feels like a real relic in a good way. Yeah, it's a nice spot. Dark. So you're in New York, are you? Yes, sir, yeah, yeah. I've lived in New York for, at this point, I don't know, 16 years maybe, so I feel naturalized to some extent. You might agree with me, but I think if New York works for you, there's kind of nowhere else to live. If you like it, everything else is sort of boring. Yeah, I went to school here, and then I just kind of always kept the place. And during the pandemic, a lot of people I knew, they all moved out to California, Hudson Valley, Long Island, wherever, Florida. And a lot of them didn't come back, but I see them now starting to come back because they miss the action. I mean, I've been here all fall, and it's really been fun. there's so there's a lot so much going on i mean it's hard to you know even we got a new mayor coming in now i mean the city is sort of electric particularly you go south of 14th street you really got a good vibe that things are going yeah up where you are things are always the same i think and that's the point it's it's just serene and i at least you can come down a little bit and get the action it's not hard it's not far no So you never lived, did you ever move the whole operation to L.A. or were you always in New York? No, I was, New York was my base, but I would spend four or six months, four to six months a year there, you know, because we did a lot of business there. We had offices in Santa Monica. We had an animation studio in Burbank. And I love being in L.A., particularly in the winter, particularly right around now when it's getting cold, you know. Sure, sure, sure. No, last night, yesterday, I was like, oh, shit, it's happening. It's like I had to put on a real jacket yesterday. Exactly.

That cold wind comes around off the river and you go, oh. I was like, I got to put up a goddamn hat on now. This is not what I bargained for. I also wanted to ask you about the Vice stuff because I was very close to that. And that chapter is funny. And I think that you captured Shane and that whole thing as a guy coming in as sort of like a successful adult. I think you really captured it in the right way as far as like the temp check on it. I feel like you've seen a lot of fumbles in your in your career. I feel like that's one of the worst fumbles of all time. Yeah, they made some big fumbles and it's too bad because for a long year they had a great run. You know, I mean, I was involved with, you know, I helped get them the HBO show, which really elevated their whole game and made them better at it. And they were great at it. And Shane was great at snipping out a cool story that was sort of on the edges and putting it together. He loved doing that. And in his heart, he really wanted to, you know. Not just entertain, but inform young people and take them to different corners where mainstream media wasn't covering it. And then they would spend too much on it. And there was a thing where we're always going to get bigger and bigger. We're going to grow this thing to the sky. And a lot of times the organization didn't keep up with that. But they had attracted this cadre of young journalists who really wanted to do good work there. And they did. You know, because the finances were out of whack, the thing kind of imploded. And, you know, they bring in a private equity company and, you know, there's certain handcuffs on the business and it didn't end well. I just know a lot of guys that I think were told very convincingly they were going to be very rich and then they aren't. It did not work out that way. You know, you're looking at one. You had a bigger chunk coming for you than Eddie did? I had a chunk, yeah. All the options were worth zero. Did you invest or were you just on the board?

I invested some money. I mean, I brought in to help bring in investors initially. Then they did that very well on their own. It was a continual process. But I got options in the company, and I helped connect them to other people. I was on the board. I was a consultant. I would spend a lot of time with them. I enjoyed going to Williamsburg and seeing it. And I would see Shane all around. I used to travel around. I'd see him in Afghanistan. I'd see him all over the place. And his people, Ben Anderson, I knew a lot of the reporters there, Michael Moynihan. Yeah, and a lot of them who started at the very beginning had big equity positions that they were counting on. And everything was just wiped out. And then there was the investor class, you know, the Disneys and the CVCs and all these other people who had invested to Murdoch. They all got wiped out, too. And Shane left with how much money? You'd have to ask him. That's how much it is, Jason. That's how much it is. I mean, he's never disclosed it. I don't know. I mean, you know, people would take out some of these guys would take out money every year. Some of them would borrow money against their equity and like boxcars of money. And then when when the thing began to implode, they had to pay it back. Yeah, I don't like that. So it wasn't like you're not going to get anything. It's like the stuff you've got. You've got to sell your houses and boats and everything. You've got to pay back. Yeah, you've got to sell your boat. I mean, he probably got at least $100 million. He bought that crazy house. You mentioned the house. When he did the Wall Street Journal picture of the house, people were like, all right, go fuck yourself. This is a little much. This castle is like a bit much. Yeah. Well, as far as investing goes, have you had a real hit or have you had something that you really thought was going to go and it flopped besides Vice? Yeah. I mean, I'm kind of a conservative, but I've invested in a bunch of stuff that hasn't worked. Sure. You know. But do you go outside of your interest areas or you kind of like to stay in stuff that you do? Wasn't there a little, there was a little MySpace.

At some point, right? Well, we looked at MySpace when I was a CEO of Viacom, and I got promoted up to that level. And we looked at it, and we never made a bid, and then Rupert Murdoch came in and bought it. But we were interested in the social media space because we kind of saw what was coming. The idea that you're going to be a gatekeeper network. But now we had something where people could connect peer to peer. They could come. You know, YouTube was really, to me, the game changer of all. You know, you could upload your own video. You could share it. You could comment on it and all. And, you know. It's now worth, you know, $550 billion. It's become so much more than what any of us ever imagined was possible. They took that simple little model and built an infrastructure around it and kept innovating. And it's like, I wouldn't say it's a monster because that's a bad term. I mean, it's a phenomena. I think it's... Bigger than it ever has been. And like you said, in ways that maybe people didn't expect it to be. Or like the use is different than people expected it to be. Yeah, you watch YouTube TV, for example. That's the greatest interface television has ever had. That shit costs me $80 a month. Yeah, it kills me. Yeah. And now we can't get ABC. I got a Disney. I think I got a $20 Disney credit because they had a blackout recently with YouTube TV. I got all these emails, class action lawsuits. I don't keep up. So what is your relationship with Rupert Murdoch over the years? And how does it stand now? I haven't seen him in a while. I mean, we were competitors, but I was friendly with him. Of course. You know, I had issues, of course, with Fox News, but I was friendly with him. And then this guy, Saad Mohseni from Afghanistan, came to see me. And he's the guy who enlisted me and invited me to come back and start this media company there after the fall of the Taliban, which I was, like, eager to do when I left Viacom. I said, that sounds fun. I'd go back and do something kind of purposeful, and I could be back in this country that still remained a fascination to me. He was described to me initially as the Rupert Murdoch of Afghanistan, which, you know.

What a title. I spit up my Pellegrino when I heard that. Yeah, because is that good or bad? But then he came and I said, you know what, I'm going to introduce you to the real Rupert Murdoch. And Saad had been, his father was a diplomat in Afghanistan and they were in Japan when the communist coup came and they became refugees and they found their way to Australia. So he's Australian like Rupert. So he and Rupert really hit it off and Rupert and News Corp became an investor. in his company on successive rounds. And that was a great thing. And then, you know, he became buddies with James. And Rupert was, my ex-wife was very friendly with his wife, Wendy. Sure. One of his ex-wives. Yeah, he's had a few. Old Roop's had a couple. He's had a run of them. He's had to peel off some ducats in court. Are we talking like double date friends? Are we talking like friendly when we see him at a charity event? Yeah, there were times where I would double date, you know, way back. Sure, I love that. We never call it a double date. Hey, I'll pick you up in my car. Hey, Rupert Murdoch, do you want to go on a double date this weekend? No, no, I'll bring my wife. It's not weird. We're both going to bring our wives. With the wives this time. No, I think that wives will bring you together with people maybe you wouldn't, you know, maybe you'd sit across the table from in different scenarios. Look, no matter what you say about him, he's an interesting character. Totally. No, I mean, that's what I've taken away from you in general, too. And I feel like this myself. I'm attracted to the business is like secondary to the characters and like the personalities. Yes. That's the most interesting part of anything, really. Yeah. A freak is a freak. Sometimes I think that's what's being taken out of the business in these last few years. The personal relationship. No, I mean, that's like Jason said earlier. It's the nerds and the numbers. And I think the personality stuff has been sort of, you know, put to the back seat. we can get there. It doesn't seem to be trending in that direction by any means, but hopefully we can get there. We need to make bullying great again. Exactly. The first step in our initiative. Well...

Maybe it's a pendulum and it swings back. I hope so. I think there's probably some, there's a possibility. Yeah, I think that that always happens. I mean, there still are companies around the edges. Like, you know, look at A24 and some of these young movie studio, movie companies that are pretty interesting and they still rely on gut and instinct and they take chances and you want to root for them. But I think A24 is a pretty good example and film in general. It's like, I think that... A lot of that stuff, you can miss a lot and hit a lot and it kind of evens out. Like you can miss a lot and hit a lot less and it evens out, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Because I think the budgets vary so much depending on what the project is. And if it's an independent company and it isn't wedged into a public company, it's not trapped into having to grow to the sky every year. You know, you can have a bad year, but, you know, I'm not going to. I'm not going to fire everybody. You're still rich. You don't have to go exponential hockey stick year over year until you die. That will ruin something. Speaking of the cyclical, really quick as we end, the book called Unplugged, obviously a reference to the MTV Unplugged series. Maybe not a complete inspiration for it, but of all the unplugs over time, what has been your favorite? Oh, there was a few. LL Cool J. He did a great one. Wow, I've got to say, that's an unexpected answer. Mama's going to knock you out. I mean, he was really fucking great playing with a band. You know, we did an early one with Paul McCartney, the kick butt. Nirvana, of course, was the big one because I remember that so clearly. We did them with Dylan. We did them with, like, you know, a whole run of people. R.E.M. did a great one. R.E.M. is my favorite. I'm partial to the Alice in Chains. A little more dirt under my nails than you guys. A little more working class. Well, mine are painted like Michael Stipe. Tom, can we watch those? Because they're not on YouTube, right? Is it on one of them? Yeah, yeah. I think if you go on to Paramount+, I believe they're all there. There's a big library of those. There's a big library of another show I really love, which is on BH1 called Behind the Music. Oh, Behind the Music, yeah. And Storytellers, too. But Behind the Music is sort of the predecessor for all these music docs we see today, which are also.

I love them. You know, I'll watch almost anyone, whether it's good or bad. Yeah, I love it when there's an old guy behind a mixing board, and he's pulling up the old, you know, he's got the Neve console, and we're going to bring the hi-hats in, and then everyone's like, oh. That's that stuff. That's the magic. Yeah. It doesn't even matter if it's a band I don't like. I'm still watching every episode. No, I'm with you. I'm with you. And you're right. They could be bringing them back now, like Sabrina Carpenter and people like that. But there's no infrastructure. They need to hire some music people. Absolutely. That would be a start. I think it's unfortunately going to happen probably somewhere else. I think that concept would be. It's happening now at NPR. Yeah, I mean, yeah. Like I said, the nerds have taken over. Exactly. Yeah. All right, Tom, thank you for joining us. When's the book out? The book comes out next Tuesday, the 18th of November. Next Tuesday, the 18th of November. Get it wherever you get books. Bob Lefset's glazing review this morning on the email. He really loved it. I saw Lefset's, and that warmed my heart. I was at dinner last night getting that free dinner, and my phone started blowing up. You know, with all these emails about left sets. And, you know, I read that because he can be harsh. I mean, he cranks out so much stuff, it's remarkable. But it was a very nice one, yeah. Yeah, we had him on a couple years ago. He was a goddamn bulldog talking to him. Good Lord. He did not. He did not like us. He did not. Oh, no? Well, I think he just didn't get what we were doing. He was just like, what is this? What is this operation you're trying to run here? I've been reading Bob Lefset since 2006. That was the first newsletter I may have ever subscribed to, honestly. Remember, it used to come out in paper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, that and Hits Daily Double, that was it. That was sort of the music business news that wasn't from a major source. But anyway, all right, the book is out the 18th. Tom, thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. And we'll see you soon. All right. Thanks, Jason. Thanks, Chris. Of course. Our pleasure. Take care. A pleasure, Tom. Enjoy talking to you guys. Bye-bye.

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